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THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 
IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 



THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 
IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 



BY 
HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER, PH.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 



CHICAGO - - - NEW YORK 
ROW, PETERSON AND COMPANY 



Tr:55F3 



Copyright, 1914, 
HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER 



m.ijjim 




.^. 



©CI,AS69668 



To 

My most helpful critic and 
friend 

Ashley Horace Thorndike, Ph.D., L.H.D. 

An inspirer of students 
A leader among scholars 

A Gentleman 

Of broad judgment 
Of high and exacting ideals 
Of unfailing patience with 
All who aim at honest work 



Prefatory Note 

I wish to recognize my debt to members of the Faculty 
of the Department of English and Comparative Literature 
of Columbia University for suggestions on the manuscript 
of this thesis; to Professor George Philip Krapp and Pro- 
fessor Harry Morgan Ayers, who read the earlier chapters, 
and to Dr. Earnest Hunter Wright, who read the proof of 
all but the last, making comments here and there, especially 
on the phraseology. I have tried to express what I owe to 
Professor Ashley Horace Thorndike by dedicating the book 
to him, under whose inspiration and stimulating criticism it 
was written. 

The bibliographical list appended is of necessity brief, and 
of necessity consists only of names of texts and of general 
books of reference, since the direction of the investigation 
is new. I have attempted to deal with phenomena at first 
hand. There is one treatise, however, that could not but 
have had influence on my deductions, since it has long been 
a standard and is practically the only exhaustive study of 
the general subject of dramatic structure, namely, Prey tag's 
Die Technik des Dramas. Though I differ materially from 
it in the analysis of Shakespeare's plays, I gladly admit 
whatever obligation there may be. 

— Harriott Ely Pansier. 



Table of Contents 

CHAPTER PAGB 

Introduction i 

I. Tragic Situations 7 

II. The Catastrophe 35 

III. The Motive, or Impelling Idea 43 

IV. The Protagonist 71 

V. The Antagonist and the Action 85 

VI. The Rise and the Crises-Emphasis including the Tragic 

Incident 115 

yil. The Crisis, the Climax, and the Arrest of the Catas- 
trophe 13s 

VIII. Unity, the Exciting Force, and the Exposition . . . 154 

IX. Unity, the Return Action, and the Underplot .... 183 

X. The Outer and Inner Action, Theatrical Devices and 

Special Scenes 200 

XL The Philosophic Idea and Climax in Falling Action . . 225 

XII. Structure 254 

Bibliography 279 



Introduction 

We shall attempt to trace in this study the coming into 
existence of a technic in Elizabethan tragedy, an evolution 
that best demonstrates itself in Shakespeare's plays. We 
shall therefore be concerned for the most part with him; 
but, in preparation for him, with the plays immediately pre- 
ceding and with the elements handed down from the Middle 
Ages. What we shall need to inquire into will not be the 
make-up of any one tragedy in itself, but in its relation to 
other tragedies, and for the evidence it gives of an advanc- 
ing technic — the employment by its author of points of 
structure that critics nowadays consider essential to a well- 
built tragedy. 

An inquiry into the technic of tragedy at any time resolves 
itself fundamentally into an inquiry concerning the atten- 
tion of audiences and dramatists to parts of the play. If 
we know what an audience wants in a particular place 
and period, we can almost certainly tell what the dramatist 
will give it. The relationship is obviously reciprocal. Like- 
wise, if we know what a people has had repeatedly, we may 
know what it has wanted. For instance, by studying the 
structure of dramas that have from time to time pleased 
the English people, we should be in a fair way to find out 
the English people's idea of what drama is, and what that 
idea has forced on the makers in the building up of their 

I 



2 INTRODUCTION 

pieces. And that is what we are seeking to discover in this 
study: not what the critics have said that tragedies ought 
to be, but what tragedies have been. What the English- 
speaking people has demanded, that it will continue to 
demand in a greater or less degree ; for a specific dramatic 
pleasure, like any other pleasure when once enjoyed by a 
large body of people, is not willingly foregone. It is 
demanded in repetition or in essence, in fact or in interpre- 
tation, in strict continuity or at intervals thereafter. 

The present day gives evidence that we are coming to a 
new age of tragedy, but in some ways it will be very much 
like the Elizabethan. It will not care for sentimentality. 
The greatest modern drama with its horrifying catastro- 
phe is in direct line with the Elizabethan-Senecan-revenge- 
motive plays. Ibsen's "Ghosts" is but a more refined 
serving-up of Thyestes's children. "Ghosts" is a scientific 
play, but its tenet is still an "eye for an eye and a tooth for 
a tooth." The drama of our age is nearer the Elizabethan 
than any other just because we recognize facts. We may 
be subjective and the wits of the Mermaid may have been 
in many cases entirely objective, but together we and they 
are concerned with the same overwhelming phenomenon — 
the significance and fulness of life. "Ghosts" is evidence 
in this contention. Our future tragedy may develop in 
opposition to the Elizabethan, but it will not necessarily 
therefore be entirely dififerent, despite the seeming paradox. 

This statement, like many other general statements, will 
be seen to be true if one only give it a wide enough applica- 
tion. Shakespearean tragedy came to take in the essentials 
of Greek tragedy with all the additions of Elizabethan tech- 



INTRODUCTION 3 

nic : the word "Lear" summed up the ages. The statement 
will be seen to be true likewise, if one only give it a narrow 
enough application : the remarkable popularity of "Hamlet" 
on the stage today attests the fact that the ordinary play- 
goer enjoys to the full what sophisticated persons call the 
crudest as well as what they call the finest of Elizabethan 
pleasures — the thrill occasioned by stage supernaturalism 
and the quiet glow of participation in contemplative philoso- 
phizing. 

The term evolution, signifying gradual modification and 
differentiation, would very well express the history of Eng- 
lish tragedy, as it would very well express the history of 
any other type of literature, if only the terms "type" and 
"evolution" were not so misleading as they are; if critics 
themselves did not forget that when they so speak they are 
dealing with abstractions, with ideas, with the evolution of 
concepts. Now, a man's idea of tragedy may grow, a 
nation's idea may grow according to the number of trag- 
edies it witnesses, yet each individual play that has helped 
to make up that idea remains unchanged, and is a particular 
phenomenon insusceptible of variation when once abandoned 
by its author. If a man consider three plays and assert that 
the third is not a tragedy, he must admit, unless the first two 
plays are exactly alike, that he has brought into the decision 
a fourth element — his ideal tragedy, or his idea of tragedy. 
Whether he got it by reading criticisms and imported it as a 
wooden measuring rod, or whether he originated it out of 
his own judgments upon similars and dissimilars in the 
plays before him, it is yet a fourth factor in the decision; 
and, though it is potent for the future, it is purely mental. 



4 INTRODUCTION 

This idea does not affect the three finished plays a whit: 
they remain exactly what they were, particular phenomena. 
But if the critic be also a playwright, this new idea at which 
he has arrived affects his next production ; and, if this same 
idea as to what is and what is not tragedy gets abroad 
thoroughly among a people, the conception is accompanied 
with a good many particular tragedies somewhat like the 
first two plays from which the critic got his standard. 

The critic and the public must both admit that the 
measuring rod is mental. If they do not, they get into the 
futile argument as to whether or not types exist, as to 
whether or not "Macbeth" is "perfect" tragedy; forgetting 
that a type, whatever its characteristics, is a generic and 
purely idealistic thing, existing nowhere outside the mind. 
As soon as a play is created, it is a particular phenomenon, 
to be dealt with mainly as such. It is worse than futile, 
therefore, it is a confession of ignorance, to call upon a 
critic to point out in actual existence his ideal tragedy, to 
presume that he can be taunted with the fact that no two 
plays are exactly alike. If they were, they would not be 
two, but one — to use a philosophical Hibernicism — and we 
should not then think of a type. I might almost have said, 
we should not then think; for thinking is typing (if I may 
coin an expression), and, although a natural process, is not 
necessarily therefore an easy one. But if English tragedy 
itself be an abstraction, what about the technic of English 
tragedy ? I leave that delectable suggestion to those who do 
not believe in types. I turn instead to a confession of faith. 

I believe that there is such an intellectual thing as the 
technic of tragedy, and that it can be understood aside from 



INTRODUCTION 5 

the plays from which it is abstracted ; and that one may 
appreciate technic who can not write a play ; and that often 
those who wrote plays (Marlowe and Shakespeare) did not 
fully appreciate their own technic ; and that one who under- 
stands technic can write a fairly acceptable play (Bulwer 
Lytton's "Richelieu") though he have not more than one 
spark of genius in him ; and that a great genius may fail to 
write an acceptable play (Wordsworth and Coleridge) be- 
cause he ignores dramatic necessities ; and that the mightiest 
dramatic genius (Robert Browning) may fail to arrive at 
being the author of a series of great plays because of the 
incapability of his times to furnish him discipline. 

Yet, though abstraction is both natural and permissible — 
since a dream that we all dream together is no dream — I 
prefer to treat the subject of technic as concretely as pos- 
sible. I want to stay as close to the history of English 
tragedy as may be, and to follow, if I can, the progress of 
the Elizabethan playwrights from emphasis to emphasis in 
the structure of their pieces, until the reader of this book 
has, if together we can evoke it, a somewhat complete idea 
of the by no means simple architectonics of English tragedy. 

It is obvious to even the most unthinking play-goer that 
there are a number of points of structure that the public 
today considers essential to all serious drama, especially to 
tragedy. We demand some striking and memorable scenes, 
and one particularly strong situation toward which the 
whole action tends. We ask for a clear dramatic motive, 
and distinct personalities, who informingly characterize 
themselves by their deeds. We expect one of the deeds to 
be a destiny-determiner for the chief contestant in the 



6 INTRODUCTION 

tragic struggle — to be, as it were, inevitable and yet to be 
of such a nature that the contestant need not have done it 
if he had not so willed. We like to recognize the point 
where he begins to think of this deed as possible, or where 
circumstances begin to close in around him so as to induce 
the frame of mind that brings the deed. We like to recog- 
nize his chief opponent also and to witness the success or 
failure of the one or the other or both at the end of the 
play. And finally, we want the whole struggle to mean 
something. 

How these demands have come about in English tragedy 
and what significance they bear structurally it is now our 
pleasure to inquire. We shall proceed so far as possible 
chronologically, with a glance forward or back, as the case 
may demand, for enlightenment by comparisons. We shall 
try in each chapter to take a forward step, studying the 
new dramatic point or the advanced emphasis with some 
exclusiveness. We shall remember the while, however, that 
after the attainment of an excellence, not all the dramatists 
moved forward; in fact, that many remained behind or 
reverted, and, moreover, that, although we can study but 
one point of structure at a time, others may be present in 
the tragedy under consideration either as inheritances from 
the past or as foreshadowings of the future. But what we 
are tracing here is the consciousness of the points. The 
reader must not be disturbed because we seem to move for- 
ward backwards. That is the way the Elizabethans moved — 
with their eyes fixed on the catastrophe. 



The Evolution of Technic in 
Elizabethan Tragedy 

Chapter I 
Tragic Situations 

In our study of the origin and development of technic 
in English tragedy, as ii^r as its culmination in Shakespeare, 
we shall naturally have much to do with the early Eliza- 
bethan drama; but before we enter upon that complex 
material, it is proper to stop to ask: "What were the 
inheritances from the past?" What did the Elizabethans 
start with? We know that they demanded in most of their 
plays good story and striking situations. Where had they 
become accustomed to these? The answer is easy. If not 
elsewhere, surely in the miracle cycles and the moralities of 
the preceding three centuries. 

The most original fact about the religious plays in Eng- 
land was their combination into collective series. This 
idea of completeness in the history of man, of a collective 
mystery from Creation to Doomsday, was a contribution of 
the English mind. It was a magnificent conception, in 
fine keeping with the sublimity of the subject; but dra- 
matically, of course, it was destined to failure. The pres- 
entation of the individual plays as moving pageants tended 

7 



8 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

toward fragmentary effect, and the succession of different 
sets of performers all but totally dissipated the central idea 
of unity. Hence the introduction of trivial incidents and 
adventitious characters. Hence also the fixing of attention 
on situation. The fact that the personages of the morali- 
ties were abstractions tended to the same result. The spec- 
tator was not solicitous about the general effect of the whole 
play, but only desirous that the incidents be stirring and the 
action vivid. 

That much of the popular expansion of the Biblical nar- 
ratives tended to the comic is undisputed ; but the question 
is, just how much? Whether a given incident was meant to 
be comic or merely realistic is hard at the present day to 
prove. Just where, for the fifteenth century audience, did 
the ranting of Herod, for instance, or the actions of the 
torturers of Jesus on the way to the crucifixion pass from 
the tragic to the comic? The assertion has been made that 
these were meant for comic elements. May they not have 
been seriously intended altogether for tragic ?^ 

It has been said that there is no tragedy in the liturgical 
drama, since there was no tragic intention. All was to end 
happily. The serious situations are at best only pathetic. 
In a large sense this judgment is true also of the popular 
miracle cycles ; for after the "Crucifixion" comes the "Res- 
urrection." Even in the "Slaughter of the Innocents" the 
one in whom we are interested escapes ; while in the 
"Doomsday" it is only the wicked who are punished. But, 
as said before, the effect of the cycles was almost of neces- 

* I have seen the Passion Play acted in the Philippines with the 
same popular expansion, but none of the incidents were received 
as comic, though there was much ranting in delivery. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 9 

sity fragmentary, and the individual pageants were enjoyed 
separate. Hence one set of incidents might be comic and 
another tragic without incongruity. Indeed, we need not 
look for congxuity in the early religious plays, when it was 
not until the second half of the seventeenth century that 
comedy was deliberately excluded from high tragedy. More- 
over, that the audience of the miracle plays did not take 
such or such a situation as funny, one would be slow to 
say, especially after an experience at a New York theater 
during a Sothern-Marlowe presentation of "Twelfth Night," 
when the episode of Sebastian's reception by Olivia (which 
was meant apparently to be serious comedy) was turned 
into farce both by the actors and the audience. 

In general the miracle situations appear to have been 
arranged with serious intent by their authors, and to have 
been received so by the onlookers. What by some persons 
might be considered as artistically ideal tragedy and what 
through the ages has been accepted as tragedy, may be two 
quite different things. An analysis of the early church 
drama certainly reveals many of the elements of later 
accepted tragedy — motives such as pride, tyranny, and 
revenge ; characteristic personages, such as evil spirits and 
tyrants, pathetic children and heartbroken mothers. Satan 
and Herod look toward Tamburlaine, Faustus, and Macbeth 
not only in roles, but often in content of speeches. Note in 
the "Massacre of the Innocents" of the York cycle how 
Herod vents his anger on the messenger of bad news as 
Macbeth vents his: 

Herod. — "Fy ! on ]?e, ladde, )?ou lyes ! 



10 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Herod. — "Thou lyes false traytoure strange, 
Loke nevere J?ou negh me nere 
Upon liffe and lyme 
May I that traitour fange 
Full high I shall gar him hunge 
Both J7e harlott and hym." 

Herod's situation at the escape of Jesus is much like Mac- 
beth's at the escape of Fleance : 

Herod. — "So may J>at boy fladde, 

For in waste have ye wrought ; 
Or that same ladde be sought 
Shall I never byde in bedde." 

In the "Coming of the Three Kings" in the York and 
Chester cycles, Herod is like Tamburlaine, ranting and 
bragging in terrific terms. In the Towneley and Coventry 
"Ohlacio Magorum" and the "Adoration of the Magi," he 
is like Macbeth again, disturbed about "the boy" that shall 
push him from his throne. In the one Herod bewails his 
fate as Macbeth bewails his at times : 

Herod. — "Alas, that ever I suld be knyght, 
Or holdyn man of mekylle myght, 
If a lad shuld reyfe me my ryght, 
Alle thus me fro." 

In the other with a false show of confidence like Mac- 
beth's "What's the boy Malcolm! Was he not born of 
woman ?" Herod tries to brave the thing out : 

Herod. — "A fy, fy, on talys that I have teen tolde. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 11 

How Xulde a barn wax so bolde 

Be bestys yf he born be ? 
He is young and I am olde. 

An hardy kyng of hye degre !" 

Eve, in the York play, is a good tragic character. After 
Adam's cowardly babblings her dignified acceptance of the 
results of her wrong-doing reminds us of Lady Macbeth's 
high-headed and quiet-mouthed dying: 

"Be still, Adam, and namen it na mere 

it may not mend. 
For wel I wate I have done wrange, 
Alas ; the whille I leve so lange, 

dede wolde I be!" 

In the Coventry play, it is Adam who is heroic. He makes 
a fine speech: 

"Lave woman, turn thi thought . . . 

Let us walk forth into the londe 
With ryth gret labour oure fode to finde, 

With delvying and dyggyng with myn hand 
Our blysse to bale and care to-pynde." 

In the Chester cycle both Adam and Eve are cowards. 

Not a few of the mystery scenes in their make-up and 
stage business also curiously anticipate later ones. Com- 
pare, for instance, the journey to Calvary with its weeping 
women, disciples, and the folk come out to see, with Richard 
Second's progress to the tower. Compare the horrible 
realism of the Crucifixion with Edward Second's torture; 
or the appearance of Death at Herod's revel with that of 



12 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Banquo's ghost at Macbeth's ; or Herod's appropriation by 
the demons with that of Faustus's. Much of all this is im- 
posed by the source ; but so is much of the dramatic business 
in later tragedy. 

Before we leave Herod, I tannot forbear to quote him 
in what is surely a tragic situation in the "Slaughter of 
the Innocents" (Chester) where he discovers that the sol- 
diers in carrying out his orders to the letter have killed 
his sons. He says : 

"He was righte sicker in silke araye. 
In gold and pearle that was so gaye. 
He mighte well knowe by his araye, 
He was a kinges sonne." . . . 

And the stricken father cries out to the woman attendant: 

"Could thou not speake, could thou not praie, 
And sale it was my sonne?" 

It was a bold hand like Marlowe's or Kyd's that drew 
the character of Cain in the "Mactatio Abel" of the Towne- 
ley cycle. Cain is depicted as a virile, coarse pessimist and 
rebel, and his deed of murder is well motived. A not unim- 
pressive scene is that where he counts out the poorer sheaves 
one by one. In this play, too, as Abel dies he calls for 
vengeance like later brothers and fathers in English tragedy. 
I do not mean to intimate that this is the source of the 
Elizabethan revenge motive, but it is interesting to notice 
an early emphasis here before the Senecan influence came 
into England. A stage-horror device that we are likely 
to accord wholly to later developed Senecan tragedy (we 
have it even in "Hamlet") is found here likewise — namely, 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 13 

the dragging of the dead body about on the stage. Cain 
finds it difficult to hide his brother's corpse. That this con- 
ception was not necessarily suggested by the source is testi- 
fied to by the fact that it is absent from the same play in the 
other three cycles. There are a few laments in those but we 
find no other tragic treatment. 

The Towneley "Abraham" and the Digby "Magdalene" 
surely are examples of liberal handling. Let us look at them 
somewhat closely ; then take up the "Remorse of Judas," 
which yields the most tragic situation of all the church 
plays; and, finally, after noting realistic scenes in the 
"Crucifixion," pass on to the Moralities. 

Abraham and Isaac. When one speaks of tragedy in the 
mysteries, the play that comes first to mind is probably the 
"Abraham and Isaac" ; but this in all the versions is rather 
pathetic than highly tragic except perhaps in the York. The 
Coventry version opens rather prettily with a scene revealing 
the love between father and son. Abraham exults over God's 
goodness to him, especially in giving him Isaac, whom he 
loves most dearly. He kisses the boy and warns him always 
to obey God. The boy prays a blessing on the father in re- 
turn. Then Abraham utters praise once more for his son 
and asserts that "no man loves bettyr his childe than Isaac 
is loved of me." The climax is well prepared for by the 
emphasis on this love and by Abraham's announcement that 
he will always obey his God, whatever the commandment. 
Then comes the commandment. This emphasis of doctrine 
suggests ecclesiastical handling. The father, although he is 
loth to kill the son, never hesitates. The child, too, is willing 
and anxious to be sacrificed. There is a fine natural touch, 



14 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

however, in a speech of Isaac's as he and Abraham go up 
the hill: 

"Ffayr fadyr, ze go right stylle, 
I pray zou, fadyr, speke onto me." 

The York and Chester versions likewise show ecclesiasti- 
cal influence. The Towneley version is much more simple, 
hence much more impressive. The child is a natural child, 
speaks like one. He is naive and sweet, and when he finds 
that his father means to kill him, he is frightened. The 
author of the Towneley play knew children at first hand, 
and fathers too. His Isaac is a typical child, not a typical 
Isaac. We are charmed with the lad's first words : 

Abraham. — Isaac, son, where art thou? 

Isaac. — Alle redy, fader, lo me here ; 

Now was I cumying unto you ; 
I luf you mekille, fader dere. 

Abraham. — And dos thou so? I wold wit how 

Lufes thou me, son, as thou has saide. 

Isaac. — Yei, fader, with alle myn hart, 

More than alle that ever was maide; 
God hold me long your life in quart. 

Another excellent touch that reveals the author's under- 
standing of human nature comes in the father's falsehood 
to his son or what must have seemed to Abraham a direct 
deception when he uttered it. He has told Isaac to be ready, 
and Isaac announces that he is now and always ready to 
do his father's bidding. In his perturbation Abraham 
says: 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY IS 

"My dere son, look thou have no dred, 
We shall come home with grete lovyng, 
Both to and fro, I shal us lede. 
Com now, son, in my blyssing." 

This scene calls to mind that of Caratach and little Hengo 
in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Bonduca," where the rugged 
old soldier stoutly asserts exact knowledge of "the blessedest 
place," to which the poor little weary and starving child 
must go. 

As I say, the Towneley author was interested in his 
characters as such. Ecclesiasticism is forgotten in the 
pathos of the situation. Notice the absolute childlikeness 
in the appeal and notice the sweetness of the boy's dis- 
position : 

Isaac. — Fader ! 
Abraham. — What, son? 

Isaac. — Think on thi get, 

What have I done ? 

Abraham. — Truly, none ille. 

Isaac. — And shall be slayn ? 
Abraham. — So have I het. 

Isaac. — Sir, what may help? 
Abraham. — Certes, no skille. 

Isaac. — I ask mercy. 
Abraham. — That may not let. 

Isaac. — When I am dede, and closed in clay, 
Who shall then be your son? 

Abraham. — A, Lord, that I shuld abide this day ! 

Isaac. — Sir, who shall do that I was won ? 
Abraham. — Speke no siche wordes, son, I the pray. 

Isaac. — Shall ye me slo ? 



16 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Abraham. — I trow I mon. 

Lyg stille, I smyte. 
Isaac. — Sir, let me say. 
Abraham. — Now, my dere child, thou may not shon. 
Isaac. — The shynyng of youre bright blayde 
It gars me quake for ferd to dee. 
Abraham. — Ther for groflynges thou shall be layde, 
Then when I striyke thou shall not se. 
Isaac. — What have I done, fader, what have I saide? 
Abraham. — Truly no kuns ille to me. 

Isaac. — And thus gyiltles shalle be array de? 
Abraham. — Now, good son, let siche words be, 

Isaac. — I luf you ay. 
Abraham. — So do I thee. 

Isaac. — Fader! 
Abraham. — What, son.-" 

Isaac. — Let now be seyn 

For my moder luf. 
Abraham. — Let be! Let be! 

The poor old man can stand the appeal no longer. He 
makes the excuse that he has forgotten something and 
goes aside to weep. He says that he would die for the 
child, and cries out in his agony: 

"What shal I to hys moder say?" 

The mother-motive is found in the Coventry and Chester, 
likewise, and in the Brome version. 

In the York play, Isaac is thirty years old. The pathetic 
emphasis is consequently entirely changed ; we are in a sense 
nearer the tragic. Both father and son appreciate the 
situation : we hear the strong man Isaac, who could easily 
save himself, begging his father to bind him, lest in the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 17 

shock of the actual blow his body revolt. His provision is 
the greatest bravery. 

Mary Magdalene. Aside from Christ and the traitor in 
the Scripture narrative, the character with the most dra- 
matic possibilities is Mary Magdalene. Her emotional na- 
ture and her devotion to the Saviour make her prominent. 
She appears in all the cycles more or less conspicuously. 
The most important of all English dramatic treatments of 
the story before 1560, and the first English treatment in 
which allegorical machinery is employed, is the "Mary Mag- 
dalene" play of the Digby Mysteries. 

It is in two parts: Part I, besides a good deal about 
Herod and Pilate, covers the presentation of Mary's father 
Cyrus and his death ; her seduction by Lechery and a gallant ; 
her repentance and wiping of Jesus' feet ; and her brother 
Lazarus' again-rising. Part H includes Christ's appearance 
to Mary at the Sepulchre ; her conversion of the King and 
Queen of Marcylle ; the feeding of her by angels from 
heaven in the wilderness ; her death. 

Scenes 8, 9, 10, 11 (Part I) trace her downfall. Lechery 
tempts her by flattery to leave home and seek experience 
abroad. She bids good-bye to Lazarus and Martha, and 
we next find her in a tavern, where occur very realistic 
scenes. She yields to a smart gallant and is lost. The steps 
are marked, (i) She calls him in, (2) lets him make love 
to her, (3) dances with him, (4) drinks with him, (5) prom- 
ises to go to the end of the world with him. Scene 10 is a 
connecting scene and was, perhaps, spectacular. It is in 
Hell. The bad angel announces Mary's fall. Scene II finds 
her in an arbor singing to her "Valentynes," her "byrd 



18 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

swetyng," her "lovys dere." From this abandonment she is 
awakened by the good angel, who warns her to seek healing 
for her soul, and she accordingly repents and determines 
to go to Christ. Were this not a Bible story, Mary might 
be carried off by the bad angels even despite her repentance, 
as Faustus was. But Scene 14 presents her at Simon's 
house, washing with her tears Christ's feet and drying them 
with her hair, and incurring the anger of Judas by breaking 
the box of precious ointment. This scene is almost purely 
tragic because of the high seriousness in the tone, and be- 
cause of the shame of the woman. Her brother Lazarus' 
again-rising is preceded, of course, by the death scene, in 
which are the corpse, the wailing neighbors, and the sorrow- 
ing sisters — incidents and elements all common to later 
tragedy. 

Part II contains in the first division the weeping of the 
women at Christ's tomb, the tragic consternation of Mary 
when she finds the body gone, the lamenting of the disciples, 
and the revelation to Mary of the risen Christ. The Digby 
author has caught the dramatic simplicity of the Scripture 
narrative and gives but the two words: "O Mari!" The 
tension once more raises this scene near to the tragic. 

Part II contains in its second division at least two tragic 
situations: one for Mary and one for the king. 

(i) Mary, the messenger of "good news" to Marcylle, 
sit^ in en old lodge without the gate, hungry, tired, 
neglected, ineffectual. She has come a long way to convert 
the king, and he has seemingly given her more to do than 
she is able to accomplish, has asked for a greater proof of 
the power of her God than she feels sure of manifesting. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 19 

(2) The other situation has one of the elements of old 
Greek tragedy. As a condition of his acceptance of the new 
religion the king had demanded of Mary that his wife 
should bear him a child. He gets the assurance of his 
desire, and in gratitude sets out to go to the Holy Land to 
be baptized of Peter. Daring to bargain with the Supreme 
Power he has forgotten, however, his own impuissance. 
His boon is attended with the utmost sorrow : a storm over- 
takes the ship on which he has embarked with his queen, 
and she dies in premature child-birth. Among, the rude 
sailors he is alone with the dead wife and the helpless 
infant. The men insist that the corpse be thrown over- 
board to allay the storm. He calls on his new God. He 
begs the sailors to be merciful. They finally agree to place 
the body with the child beside it on a rock that rises up 
nearby out of the sea. The King says : 

"ly here, wyff, and chyld fe by. 
blyssyd maydleyn, be hyr rede ! 
with terys wepyng, and grett cause why, 
I kyss you both in ]?is sted. 
Now woll I pray to Mary myld 
to be l^er gyde her." (11. 1792-1797) 

The ship then continues on its way to the Holy Land. 

The naive conception of verisimilitude is interesting. How 
the ship, in danger of being dashed to pieces by the waves, 
could stop at the rock is not clear. A generous taking of 
the story as it is, however, was surely as commendable at 
that early date as later, when Shakespeare, in what has been 
called his part of the "Pericles" play, had the very same 
situation of the weeping husband and father, the new-born 



20 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

babe, and the dead wife cast overboard to allay the storm, 
with the added tax on credulity of the later scene when the 
coffin was thrown upon the shore by the waves and the wife 
was brought to life again. 

The Remorse of Judas. The life of Judas offers the best 
opportunity for tragedy in the general conception of the 
term: the struggling of a soul through a series of experi- 
ences that end for him in misfortune and death. Catastro- 
phe brought on by one's own misdeeds is the essence of 
tragedy. We find the York mysteries presenting Judas, not 
as we might expect from later developments of the miser in 
the Barabas type, but as an ordinarily good man yielding 
to a besetting sin, indulgence in which is followed by remorse 
and a pitiful, though dignified because self-imposed, death. 
Of course, the authors are guided by the Scripture narra- 
tive ; but it is interesting to note that they seek a dramatic 
motive for Judas's treason in an emphasis of his irritation 
over the master's indifference to Mary's extravagance with 
the precious ointment. This feeling is in the Towneley as 
well as in the other cycles. 

If the authors had had any conception of the action of 
a tragedy, they might readily enough have gathered up the 
Judas incidents that are scattered through the presentation 
of the life of Christ, and have put these into the form of 
an introduction, or the first half, to what they had already 
written — the second half of a real play. In other words, 
"The Remorse of Judas," now found embodied in the Cokis 
and Waterlederer's mystery of the "Second Accusation Be- 
fore Pilate" in the York cycles, is an actual part of a possi- 
ble, well-constructed drama. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 21 

Jesus has been sent to Herod, and while Pilate and his 
court wait the return of the victim, Judas enters, talking to 
himself. He says: 

"Alas ! for woo )?at I was wrought 
Or evere I come be kynde or kynne, 
I banne ]>e bonys me furth brought, 

Woo worthe pe wombe ]>d.t I bredde ynne, 
So may I bidde. 
For I so falsely did to hym 

)?at unto me grete kyndnesse kidde." 

Then he remembers that he may yet save his Master and 
friend. He goes up to Pilate, and the following dialogue 
ensues, in which Judas reaps the full reward of his deed — 
retribution in a sense more tragic than that which befell 
Macbeth. They both have betrayed a kind friend. They 
both know that they must die for the treachery ; but Macbeth, 
because he is overcome materially ; Judas, because he is con- 
quered spiritually. He really loved his master, and, now 
that the spasm of cupidity is gone, he realizes that his own 
heart is broken. There is nothing for him to do but to hang 
himself; yet he recks that fact but little. The tragedy for 
him lies in the realization that he cannot now save his friend. 

Judas. — My tydyngis are teneful, I telle you, 
Sir Pilate, periort I you praye, 
My Mastir that I gune selle you, 
Gode lorde, late hym wende on his way. 
Kaiph. — May, nedelyngis, Judas, ]?at we denye. 

What mynde or mater has moved J^e ]?us ? 
Judas. — Sir, I have synned ful grevously, 

Betraied J?at right-wisse bloode, Jesus 
And master myne. 



22 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Kaiph. — Bewscher, what is J?at till us, 

)?e perill and ]?e plight is thyne. 
Thyne is ]>& wronge, )?ou wroughte it, 

l|7ou hight us full trewlye to take hym. 
And cures is J^e bargayne, we boughte it, 

Loo ! we are alle sente for to slee hym. 

Judas. — Alias ! }?at may me rewe full ill, 
Giffe ye assente hym for to slaa. 

Pilate. — Why, what wolde ]?ou at we did J?er-till ? 

Judas. — I praie you good lorde, late hym gaa, 

And here is of me youre paymente playne. 

Ivaiph. — Naie, we will noght so, 

We bought hym for he schulde be slayne ; 
To slee hym J^i selffe )?ou assent it. 

]?is wate \>on wondirly wele. 
What right is nowe to repente it, 

j7ou schapist ]?i selffe un-seele. 

None of them will listen to Judas ; they tell him to walk 
out. He prays them to take the money and spare Jesus. 
Pilate scornfully refuses, and taunts him with his treachery. 
Judas says : 

"I knawe my trespasse and my gilte 
It is so gxete, it garres me grise. 
Me is full woo he schulde be spilte, 
Might I hym save of any wise, 

Wele were me J?an 
Save hym, sirs, to your service 

I will me bynde to be your man. 
Youre bonde-man, lorde, to be 
Nowe evere will I bynde me, 
Sir Pilate, ye may trowe me. 
Full faithfull shall ye fynde me. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 23 

Pilate. — Fynde J?e faithfull ? A ! foule mot ]?e falle ! 
Thi maistir's bloode ]7ou biddist us save, 
And )?ou was firste ]?at did him treasonne." 

So Judas has his punishment ! 

Comparable to the tragic irony of the "mouth-honor" so 
distasteful to Macbeth is the tragic irony of the blood-money 
to Judas. He does not want it now. Since it will not buy 
back his master, he loathes it. The earlier Judas would 
have kept it, if for nothing else than to defray the expense 
of the new halter with which he means to hang himself. But 
the lost soul sees things clearly. Earth values have passed. 
The taking and giving of money have no significance now. 
The intention is all, as he has long since realized, and as his 
scorners do not fail to insist. 

An almost .^schylean touch is added to this little drama 
in what might be called the epilogue, a scene embodying the 
superstitious dread of the other people in regard to the thirty 
shillings. Judas is indifferent to them; but they are por- 
tentous to Pilate and Kaiphas. And I dare say that when 
the announcement was made that the money should not go 
into the treasury, but should be used to buy a potter's field, 
something not far from a thrill of anticipatory horror struck 
more than one heart among the poorer portion of the on- 
lookers at the English pageant : 

"Pilgrims and palmers to putte I'ere, 
And other false felons ]?at we for-fare." 

Crucifixion. Before leaving the mysteries we will notice 
the "Crucifixion," and mention by the way a few isolated 
facts; namely, that the slaughter of the innocents apparently 



24 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

took place on the stage, as did also the death of Herod in 
the Towneley, as well as that of his infant son, and the death 
of Adolescens (whom Lamech slays), and the racking of 
Christ. In the last, the realism of the conversation enhances 
the horror. The York play is the most elaborate. There 
are one hundred fifty-two lines of nervous, crude, running 
comment on the work as it proceeds — stichomythia. 

After the soldiers have ordered Jesus to lie down and 
bend his "back upon this tree," and one man has taken his 
right hand, and another his left, a third his limbs, a fourth 
his head, and are setting out with speed to accomplish the 
fastening, they find to their dismay that the body is too 
short: "It failis a foste and more." (1. 107.) Two of the 
men are concerned : they fear that their work must be done 
over ; but the third says : 

"Why carpe ye so? Faste on a corde, 
And tugge hym to, by toppe and taile." 

They comment and struggle for forty lines, and finally 
accomplish the horrid work to the breaking of the sinews: 
"Zan, assundir are both sinews and veins, on like a side; 
so have we soughte." (1. 148.) 

But they must yet carry him to the top of the hill, and 
"hym hyng on heghte ]7at men myght see." They discuss 
whether four men are enough for the weight. They make a 
great ado about the lifting : 

Mil. — Lifte uppe! 

Mil. — Latte see ! 

Mil. — Owe! lifte a-lang. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 25 

Mil. — Fro all ]?is harme he schulde hym hyde, 
And he was God. 

A touch of dramatic irony. 

The situation is repeated when they start on again after 
resting. But the most realistic horror comes when they lift 
the cross up high and let it fall suddenly into the mortise 
so as to jolt. Finding that the hole is too big, they set to 
work to fix the upright with wedges, hammering them in 
and jesting the while at the man on the cross above. They 
repeat his prophecies to him, and then leave him — to "make 
mowes on the mone." (1. 286.) 

The lamentation scene of the "Maria Magdalene" and 
"Maria Virgo" in the Coventry Cycle is more dignified and 
impressive than many similar elegiac scenes in Elizabethan 
tragedy. 

Of deep pathos, likewise, — the kind that Shakespeare con- 
sidered worthy of tragedy — we have an example in the 
Coventry "Burial of Christ," where Maria Virgo kisses the 
bloody face of her son : 

A, mercy ! mercy myn owyn son so dere, 

Thi bloody face now I must kysse! 
Thi face is pale, withowtyn chere ! 

Of meche joy now xal I misse ! 
Ther was nevyr modyr that sey this, 

So her son dyspoyled with so grete wo: 
And my dere chylde nevyr did amys, — 

A, mercy ! fadyr of hefne, it xulde be so ! 

Considering the time, surely one feels that the conception 
and treatment here displayed do not compare unfavorably 



26 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

even with the greatest, even with that of the last scene in 
one of the greatest of all English dramas, where the broken 
old king hangs over the sweet dead body of his beloved 
Cordelia. 

Early Moralities. "The Castle of Perseverance," the earli- 
est complete extant morality, has for its theme the spiritual 
history of Mankind, as the Miracle cycles had the spiritual 
history of the world. The whole tone of the play is serious, 
and there are here and there tragic moments. Indeed the 
play may be said to end in a catastrophe, since Mankind 
sinks into hell. (He is saved only by the Catholic dispensa- 
tion of the mass.) The play opens with the world 
(Mundus), the Flesh (Caro), and the Devil (Belial), each 
making announcement of his dominion. The Good and Bad 
Angels contend for the alliance of Mankind, and Bad Angel 
wins by promising Mankind wealth along with worldly pleas- 
ure. This conquest ends what might be called the "intro- 
duction," and the "action" begins immediately — Mankind's 
struggle with the world. By and by Good Angel says : 

"Mankind has forsakyn me ! (1. 451) 

Alas, man, for love of the ! 
Ya, for this gamyn and this gle 
Thow shalt grocehyn and grone." 

The world wins step by step until Mankind is "With 
sevene synys sadde be-set," and is defiant of good : 

"Mekyl myr )?e I mone in mynde, (1. 1245) 

With melody at my mow J^is met; 
My proud pouer schal I not ende, 
tyl I be putte in peynys pyt, 
to helle hent fro hens. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 27 

"In dale of dole, tyle we are downe 
We schule be clad in a gay gowne : 
I see no man but pey use somme 

of ]?ese vij dedly synnys." (1. 1253) 

A not inappropriate comment on the world. 

As the story goes, this is a tragic situation. Good Angel 
says (1. 1290), "Alas! Mankinde is bobbyt and blent as ]>q 
blynde !" . . . "Alas ! Mankynde is soylyd and saggyd in 



synne 



Good Angel and Shrift, however, with the aid of Penance, 
get Mankind into the Castle of Perseverance. (1. 1693.) 
Here he is exhorted by the forces of Good. The tragic situ- 
ation comes when, lured by his old enemy Covetousness, 
Mankind decides to leave the Castle of Perseverance : 

"I forsake ]?e Castle of Perseverance : 
In coveytyse I wyl me hyle. 
For to gete sum sustynaunce." 

To the reproach of Good Angel, to the efifect that Mankind 
is being allowed to destroy himself. Meekness says: 

"Good Angel, what my I do ]?er-to? (1. 2558) 
hymselfe may his soule spylle, 
Mankynde, to don what he wyl do, 
God hath zonyn hym a fre wylle." 

This is the tragedy, of course, — that he insists on his own 
will and sells himself to worldly pleasure. He sinks so low 
that he says (1. 2775) : 

"If I myth al-wey dwellyn in prosperyte, 
Lord God, J^an wel were me! 
I wolde, pe medys, forsake pee 

& nevere to comyn in hevene." 



28 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Death assails Mankind, and Mankind is not ready, no 
more than was Faustus. Death and Mankind meet face to 
face (1. 2843), ^"d I take it that the combat was as real and 
as tragic to the audience as was that between Macbeth and 
his adversary at the final struggle. And, ironic justice! 
here stands the boy "I-know-not-who" to reap Mankind's 
wealth, as later there stood the boy Malcolm to appropriate 
Macbeth's crown. But Mankind, after all, is more like 
Faustus in his death ; for he sinks to hell crying on the 
world to help him : 

"Werld, werld! have me in mende! (1. 2853) 
Good syr Werld ! helpe now Mankinde !" 

A Morality of Wisdom Who is Christ. "A Morality of 
Wisdom Who is Christ" (c. 1450) is midway between "The 
Castle of Perseverance" (c. 1425) and "Mankind" (c. 1475), 
in date and composition. In effectiveness the pieces range in 
the same order. "Mankind" is the weakest. There is no 
tragic situation in "Wisdom," however, unless the bare 
shadow summed up in 11. 520-527 be one. Lucifer, dressed 
as a dandy, has been angling for Mind, Will, and Under- 
standing. He has caught them, and now stands chuckling 
over his success. He says : 

"Of my dysyere, now have I summe; 
Wer onys brought into custume. 
Then farewell, consyens! he wer clumme, 
I xulde have all my wyll. 

"Resone I have made bothe defife and dumme, 
Grace ys owt, and put a-rome; 
Wethyr I wyll have, he xall cum, 
So at l?e last I xall hym spyll." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 29 

This is like lago's incisive scorn: "Work, my medicine, 
work ! Thus credulous Fools are caught." 

Mankind. 'The handling of its subject shows us," says 
Pollard, "that in 'Mankind' the morality play is approaching 
its sixteenth century degradation." The play was written, 
he says, for strolling actors, a fact that partly accounts for 
its low tone. After Pollard's analysis,^ it is scarcely worth 
while to talk of tragic situations. Mercy and Mankind, the 
only serious characters in the play, are made laughing stocks 
at once by the other characters and by the author. If the 
play were written in good earnest as a morality, the tragic 
situations would come where (i) Mankind gives up his 
spade (1. 542) : "Here I gyf uppe my spade for now and 
forever"; and (2) where, ashamed of his life, he cries: 

"A rope ! a rope ! I am not worthy !" 

Perhaps line 720 would be tragic, where wretched Mankind 

puts off his monitor until another time: "to morne or the 

next day." This scene of a rope is a favorite one in later 

plays. Hieronimo is discovered on the stage with a rope ; 

and Achitophel in "David and Bethsabe" shows the rope 

with which he is going to hang himself like Judas before 

him, despite the seemingly mixed dates. 

Mundus et Infans. "Mundus et Infans" has a simple, 

straightforward plot: the Worlde, Conscyence, Folye, and 

Perseverance in turn try to direct Infans, who is successively 

called Wanton, Lust, and Lykynge, Manhode, Shame, and 

Age. The theme is like that of most of the moralities — 

life and salvation : 

iThe Macro Plays: Early English Text Society, Extra 
series 91. 



30 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"Folye before and same behynde, — 
So, syrs, thus fareth the Worlde alwaye !" 

(11. 698-699) 

The pathetic situation comes in line 713, where conscience, 
deserted by his ward, who is setting out to London to seek 
Folye, says: 

"Saye, Manhode, friende, whyder wyll ye go?" 
He goes to destruction; and, in line y^y, he moans his lot 
(Enter Manhode, old and broken) : 

"Alas ! alas ! that me is wo ! 
My life, my lykynge I have forlorne." 

"Folye hath gyven me a name; (1. 828) 

So where-ever I go 
He clypped me Shame, 
Now Manhode is gone, 
Folye hath followed me so." 

Everyman. "Everyman" is exceedingly dramatic. It in- 
creases in eflfectiveness, until at the last episode, after all his 
fellows have deserted him, Everyman goes into the grave 
alone, with only Good Deeds to speak for him. What shall 
be presented is chosen by the morality writer with more 
than usual insight. Instead of beginning back at Every- 
man's birth, the play starts at the tragic moment : when the 
soul is called to account. 

The action consists in continued invitation and refusal, 
refusal on the part of former companions to go with Every- 
man on his long journey. To one seeing the play acted, the 
cumulative effect is very impressive. But the most striking 
situations are the first and the last. A high school pupil 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 31 

who saw the Ben Greet company present "Everyman" in 
Chicago said that he should never forget the thrill that he 
felt at the words, 

"Everyman, stand still ! Whyder arte thou goynge 
Thus gayle? Hast thou thy maker forgete?" — 

words which are uttered by the awful figure of Death, who 
confronts Everyman just as he is apparently leaving the 
scene, in the full flush of worldly joy — the pert feather in 
his cap, the silk cloak over his shoulder, the lute under his 
arm. I dare say that such was the impression on the Tudor 
audience. 

The next most striking situation, as has been said, is the 
last, where those qualities which one persists in thinking will 
stay with one, desert Everyman: Five Wits, Beauty, Dys- 
crecyon, even Knowledge, slip away. Good Deeds can help 
Everyman only into his grave, and at best say: 

"Shorte our ends and mynys be our payne, 
Let us go and never come agayne." 

One can hardly assert that the day of' the moralities is over, 
when New York audiences crowd to see "Everywoman." 

The Disobedient Child. Contrary to the usual prodigal- 
son story, "The Disobedient Child" ends unhappily, thereby 
at once suggesting tragedy. Nevertheless, the situations are 
those of comedy ; for, however unpleasant to the young man 
may be the prospect of living with his termagant wife, we 
feel, as does his father, that the headstrong youth deserves 
the experience. We may yield him an aphorism, but not a 
tear. Indeed, the purpose of the play is didactic ; and with 



32 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

its structural merits, its good verse and realistic dialogue, 
it asserts itself as an early example of satiric comedy, rather 
than as a promise of tragedy. 

The Nice Wanton. Along with the "Disobedient Child" 
the "Nice Wanton" is a vigorous antecedent of the cor- 
rective drama of manners as well as in theme and some situ- 
ations an antecedent of domestic tragedies. It, too, ends 
unhappily. The theme is announced in the prologue: "He 
that spareth the rod, the chylde doth hate." The element of 
the tragic, much more apparent than in the "Disobedient 
Child," is worked out in the lives of the mother, the daugh- 
ter, and one son. The action consists in the progress to 
shame of Ismael and Delila. The promise of the catastrophe 
comes in line 39, where the two children cast away their 
books and turn to pastime. 

The preparation for the mother's grief and attempted 
suicide is clearly made in the sketch of her character given 
in lines 95-140, where she is highly indignant at the accusa- 
tion against her children, and refuses to investigate. We 
rather rejoice in her independence in showing the gossip the 
door, and have a warm spot in our hearts for her when she 
fusses over her children's material welfare : 

"Nay, by this the poor soules be come from scole wery, 
I will go get them meate to make them mery." 

But we cannot forgive her negligence of their spiritual good 
— for we have met the young people, and can understand 
Eulalia's prophecy. 

The singing and card-playing scene well contrasts with 
the impending catastrophe, and emphasizes it. Here occur 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 33 

the deeds that shall immediately react. The next scene 
shows their reaction, and is the beginning of the catastrophe. 
A tragic situation, really melodramatic, is reflected in the 
words of Delila in line 292 : "To tell you who I am, I dare 
not for shame." She has come in, ragged, disfigured, and 
halting, on a staff. Her brother is a somewhat more lovable 
character than when the audience heard him last in the un- 
gracious office of back-biting. He sees the wretched woman 
and undertakes to comfort her. He has unwittingly called 
her "sister": 

"Shew me your name, sister, I you pray, 
And I will help you now at your neede : 
Both body and soule wyl I fede," 

She answers : 

"You have named me already, if I durst be so bold, 
Your sister Delila, that wreche I am." 

The trial of Ismael and Iniquity is not tragedy ; it is some- 
thing else, although the two are condemned to be hanged. 
But a trial scene is in line with later English drama. 

In the "Nice Wanton" the mother's sorrow is what is 
most tragic. She attempts to kill herself. An extremely 
pathetic speech is her utterance when the neighbors report 
to her her son's condemnation. With quickened imagination 
she sees his death: 

"My dere son Ismael hanged up in chaines — 
Alas, the wynd waveth his yellow lockes!" 

For penetrative simplicity this last line seems worthy to be 
put beside Emilia's reply to her husband in the great Othello 



34 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

catastrophe: "Perchance, lago, I will ne'er go home!" or 
beside the Duchess of Malfi's charge to her maid when the 
executioners have already entered the room: 

"I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy 
Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl 
Say her prayers ere she sleep." 

In summary, then, it may be said that in the mystery 
plays and in the moralities up to 1560 there are a number 
of elements found in later tragedy. Especially are the older 
plays good in situations. Some vivid and intense scenes 
have their after-types even today. Before Senecan influence 
became manifest in English tragedy, English audiences 
were accustomed to acted scenes presenting a not inconsid- 
erable amount of realistic spectacle and making a strong 
emotional appeal. 

Some of those scenes may be tabulated thus : 

A murderous tyrant showing fear of a successor. 

An apparition at a revel. 

Appropriation by demons. 

Pathos scenes with children in them. 

Weeping and lamentation scenes. 

A murderer trying to hide the body of the victim. 

Tragic mental struggle and conflict, emphasized with irony. 

Elaborate catastrophe with torture. 



Chapter II 
The Catastrophe 

It is indisputable that much of the structure, or lack of 
structure, that early Elizabethan dramas display was imposed 
by the stories behind the action; but surely that fact is one 
of all dramas from "Agamemnon" to "Macbeth," and from 
"Romeo and Juliet" to "Paolo and Francesca." The con- 
scious artist like Schiller struggles with his sources and 
subdues them to an extent ; but the unconscious artist — well, 
who is the unconscious artist? When did he Uve? The 
answer, no doubt, lies back in that fascinating realm of all 
literary origins which our ballad critics have for some time 
been entertainingly discussing. Until they arrive at an 
agreement the rest of us, I suppose, have a right to remain 
silent. 

Fortunately, in this study the question is not one of con- 
sciousness or unconsciousness on the part of the artist, but 
rather is it a question of consciousness of what? We know . 
that the Elizabethans deliberately set out to write plays. 
The inquiry now is — How did they start? What did they 
take for a fixed point of structure ? We recall that the mid- 
dle ages made a rough distinction between tragedy and 
comedy ; and that Chaucer summed up that view in a very 
strict definition, wherein the chief requirement of a tragedy 
is that it should end in wretchedness and that the character 

35 



36 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

should fall from a high estate. This distinction referred to 
narrative, and not to dramatic treatment ; but our early play- 
wrights adopted the distinction. If they chose to have their 
tragical histories "mixed full of mirth," they announced the 
fact ("Cambises") ; and if they chose to change the ending 
of a serious story, they warned the public ("Damon and 
Pythias"). We find their title-pages displaying the words 
tragedy and comedy. That these were sometimes combined 
into "tragical-comedy" only goes to prove that the play- 
wright felt the division that his public usually expected. 

Now, the prime Elizabethan tragical situation was death. 
This fact is evinced no more surely by the plays themselves 
than by the announcements of them. We find such outlines 
as this: "The Spanish Tragedie, containing the lamentable 
end of Don Horatio and Bellimperia : with the pittifull death 
of olde Hieronimo." "The Lamentable Tragedie mixed full 
of plesant mirth, containing the Life of Cambises, King 
of Percia, from the beginning of his kingdom until his Death, 
his one good deed of execution, after that, many wicked 
deeds and tyrannous murders committed by and through 
him, and last of all his odious death by God's Justice ap- 
pointed, Done in such order as followeth." 

There is no such thing as an Elizabethan tragedy without 
death, and those plays that were called tragedies had death at 
the end. Moreover, not merely death, but violent death was 
expected. In the miracle plays audiences had become accus- 
tomed to slaughter, murder, torture, hanging, and suicide; 
hence these presentations would easily have been included 
in Elizabethan tragedies without any influence from abroad. 
But the influence came, enhancing the native tendency. Yet 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 37 

it is noticeable that the foreign influence did not furnish 
the tradition of having death invariably present at the end 
of the action. The Greek did not, certainly ; and the Latin 
model at first so closely followed in England did not display 
it as indispensable. The English seem of themselves to have 
demanded the invariable death conclusion. Whether the 
early use came from a native impulse toward completeness 
(as the contribution of the cycle idea to the mystery plays 
would seem to indicate), or whether the later convention 
came by mere repetition of earlier chance, one would not be 
safe in asserting. It may be that what is easily the strong- 
est scene of the church drama made here an enduring record 
for itself in the dramatic preference of the English people. 
The emotions excited by the representation of the crucifix- 
ion were ultimately pleasurable emotions and not far from 
what Aristotle asserts as necessary concomitants of great 
tragedy. Mingled with pity and fear was a sense of pro- 
pitiation. The sight of suffering thus became purifying in 
so far as the figure on the cross represented humanity pay- 
ing a debt for transgression. Moreover, this strongest inci- 
dent of all the miracle plays occurred as the end of a pageant, 
and naturally enough (but curiously apposite to our sugges- 
tion) finished with the decent arrangement of the body and 
the carrying of it off the stage with the accompanying word 
of a friend. 

But whatever the cause, the fact remains that the death 
catastrophe appears to be the first fixed point of structure 
towards which the Elizabethan playwrights worked in the 
making, of their tragedies. There seems to have been an in- 
dissoluble connection in their minds between tragedy and 



38 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

death, if not between death and tragedy. In other words, 
their early compositions of the type end in death, and those 
plays with the word tragedy added to the title in conjunction 
with some other designation use the word tragedy to signify 
the element of death. For instance, "The Love of David and 
Faire Bethsabe, with the Tragedy of Absalom." "The trouble- 
some raigne and lamentable death of Edward the Second, 
King of England: with the tragical fall of proud Mortimer, 
[And in the second quarto this addition:] And also the life 
and death of Peirs Gaveston, the greate Earle of Cornewall, 
and mighty favorite of King Edward the Second." It is 
noteworthy that these separate items in this last title indi- 
cate not only the parts into which this drama divides, but 
also the end of each part, and that it is the very close of the 
play which presents "the tragical fall of proud Mortimer" — 
namely, his loss of his head, for there is no other "fall" pre- 
sented. 

The reason for the addition of this catastrophe to the 
long tragic death of Edward is really also the popularity 
of the revenge motive, the subject taken up in our next 
chapter ; the significant fact here is that the words "tragical 
fall" represent just eighty lines at the close of the play. 
Before taking up the next point of study, however, we might 
well look at the variation the early dramatists made in their 
prime tragic situation. In this brief review we will not 
concern ourselves with sources, but only with the modifica- 
tions of the chosen scene. 

In "Gorboduc" a series of deaths is reported, one conse- 
quent upon the other. The younger brother kills the elder; 
the mother, the younger ; the populace, the royal father and 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 39 

mother; the nobles destroy the leaders of the rabble; and 
civil war blots out the whole nobility. Since the gentlemen 
of the Inner Temple who wrote the play were strongly under 
classical influence, none of these deaths occur on the stage; 
but that the authors set out to write with the end of their 
play in mind is proved by the fact that they declared their 
intention to be to teach a lesson against civil discord. 

In the little "tragical comedy" of "Apius and Virginia" 
there is the reported stabbing of the daughter by her father 
to save their honor, and the actual bringing in of her severed 
head. 

In Gascoigne's "Jocasta" relatives weep over a dead body 
pushed about on the stage. 

In "Cambises" the hated tyrant, who has killed a number 
of persons, including an innocent child, and who, toward the 
end of the play, has met with an accident while leaping on 
his horse, finally comes before the audience to die, with a 
"sword thrust up into his side bleeding." He falls down and 
"quakes and stirs." 

In "Tancred and Gismunda" the heroine is forced to 
drink from a golden goblet her lover's heart with some poi- 
son which she has added ; and her old father, after fon- 
dling the corpse of his daughter, whose sorrow he has 
caused, "pluckes out his eyes and stabbs himself." 

At the close of "The Misfortunes of Arthur," the report 
is brought in that the king and his traitor son have each 
given the other a death-wound in personal encounter on the 
battlefield. The son, it is said, spitted himself on the out- 
stretched sword of his father in order to deliver the blow. 
The dying king appears on the stage and orders the dead 



40 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

body of his son to be brought to him. While he gazes on the 
beloved face, he laments the terrible sin that could bring this 
end about. The gazing on a face and philosophizing the 
while affords English drama two or three of its most mem- 
orable scenes. 

The next variation in the death theme at the end of the 
play is startling indeed. In "The Spanish Tragedy" we find 
murder elaborately prepared with the intent of revenge; a 
quick series of assassinations (one by a woman who there- 
upon commits suicide) ; the displaying of a corpse previously 
hung up for the purpose behind a curtain ; the biting out of 
his own tongue by the hero to avoid possible disclosure of 
his accomplices ; and, finally, his stabbing of himself and his 
remaining enemy. Hardly could presented catastrophe go 
further. An obvious modification of the scene just men- 
tioned would be the hanging, up of a live person by accident 
and the stabbing of him to death before the audience. This 
modification we find in the Absalom tragedy included in the 
"David and Bethsabe." 

Yet another handling of corpses occurs in "The Battle of 
Alcazar," where the dead leader, propped up in his chair 
as if alive, is carried about to deceive his followers; and a 
drowned person is brought dripping upon the stage. 

There remains, it would seem, but one possible addition to 
the list of catastrophe devices before 1590; namely, that the 
dead should kill the living. We have this addition in the 
"Solyman and Perseda" last act, where the lustful tyrant 
meets his death by kissing the poisoned lips of the brave 
woman he has pursued to her doom. 

We see, then, that this favorite situation grew in elab- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 41 

Grateness at the end of the play until it came to take in not 
only the report but the presentation of a very large variety 
of horrors. Catastrophes subsequent to those we have re- 
viewed could for the most part only rearrange these digits, 
or multiply them together, or subtract from them. Indeed, 
the first tragedy of the new period ("Tamburlaine") re- 
verted to natural dying for its conclusion. We might say, 
therefore, that pre-Marlowean dramatists practically threw 
their net around all catastrophe. 

The horror of the last scene of "Titus Andronicus" is only 
the death of Virginia, the unpleasant suicide of Gismunda, 
and the successive assassinations of old Hieronimo's play 
added together. The base indignity in the "Edward 11" 
catastrophe is but an episode of the Damon-and-Pithias 
"tragic comedy" turned serious. We examine "Macbeth" 
and we find that at the close the audience witnessed a per- 
sonal combat and saw a severed head brought in. We recall 
that in the last act of "Hamlet," besides the duel and the 
stabbing, there is the drinking of the stoup of wine into 
which the pearl and the poison have been dropped ; and that 
in "Lear," in addition to the hearing of the deaths of many 
contestants, we see the grief-stricken parent distractedly 
mourning over the body of his child. But these details were 
not new when Shakespeare used them. They had been on 
the English stage for thirty years. In one of Tourneur's 
terrible tragedies there occurs the accidental death of a tyrant 
and in the other a dead body is propped up as if alive; 
in Massinger's "Duke of Milan" the murderer takes the fatal 
kiss from the poisoned lips — repeated incidents. In other 
words, the ending, of the early Elizabethan tragedies became 



42 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

an established convention used both by the scholars and the 
popular playwrights. 

But whoever reads, even slightly, in Elizabethan drama 
realizes great differences in these similar catastrophes, espe- 
cially in the case of Shakespeare's plays, and one naturally 
inquires the cause. Why is it that Shakespeare stands out 
so great among his great and similar contemporaries? In 
what way does he surpass those who immediately went be- 
fore him and those who came after him? It seems no 
answer to reply, Because he kept the middle way between 
the drama of the schools and the drama of the people. 
Yet this statement comes very near to being the truth. He 
tempered convention with liberality and liberality with con- 
vention. He reached a developed typical technic and avoided 
the overelaboration of it. His predecessors lacked the full 
development, and his successors went beyond it; that is, to 
use the biological analogy, the later men reverted. 

Yet this is the same old answer that everybody gives, and 
it is illuminative only if we already know the facts. It errs 
on the side of summary and generality. One may well ask, 
What was the typical ? And how did Shakespeare perfect it ? 

It is our plan to answer these questions specifically and in 
detail for tragedy in terms of the plays themselves. We have 
made the first advance when we have found a common ele- 
ment ; namely, the similarity of the catastrophe. But before 
we attempt to proceed we ought to find out how it happened 
that catastrophes not only were but remained so much alike. 
What bound Elizabethan tragedies together? What was it 
that reinforced the native impulse? 



Chapter III 
The Motive, or Impelling Idea 

One thing that bound all Elizabethan tragedies together 
from "Gorboduc" to "The Traitor" and "The Cardinal" was 
the influence of Seneca. To Elizabethans "Seneca" meant 
a number of plays, the ten Latin tragedies ascribed to one 
name. These were studied in the schools, paraphrased as 
class exercises and imitated and quoted by everybody who 
made any pretense to learning either in Latin or the vernacu- 
lar. Queen Elizabeth herself translated part of the "Her- 
cules Qitaeus." In 1581 a collected authorized edition of 
the ten plays came out in English rhymed verse, and was 
extraordinarily popular. 

How acute the influence of Seneca was on Elizabethan 
tragedy in the minutiae of rhetoric and philosophy, Pro- 
fessor Cunliffe set forth about twenty years ago in a doc- 
torate essay at the University of London.^ But the influence 
that Professor CunliflFe discovers was, it seems to me, a 
perennial influence, one applied to the minds of the rising 
generations successively, much as Greek and Latin tradition 
is brought to bear on the minds of high school and university 
students today, and then ultimately in weaker form reaches 
the man of the street. Contact with Seneca was obviously 
in many cases not immediate, but rather three or four times 
removed, like the contact of some persons with Alexander 

1 "Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy," John W. Cun- 
liffe. Macmillan, 1893. 

43 



44 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Pope today, solely through household quotations. Moreover, 
such influence of phrase and sentiment varied with the per- 
son influenced and resulted in mere quotation or in free and 
characteristic assimilation, according to the amount of indi- 
viduality and creative genius possessed. Shakespeare made 
use of Seneca to perfect his own technic. 

It is not the minutiae of Senecan influence that we need to 
recall in this study, but rather the large structural effects 
that Professor CunliflFe altogether omits. He speaks of the 
five acts and the chorus, the violation of the unities and of 
the so-called stage decencies, the messenger, and the other 
stock characters ; but it is not these with which we are most 
concerned. The chorus was soon largely neglected even by 
the scholars, and the five acts had been in use in English 
comedy for fifteen years when "Gorboduc" was written. 
The Chorus was used by Ben Jonson in one of his two 
tragedies, and Shakespeare employed it much modified in 
"Romeo and Juliet," and harnessed to his needs in "Henry 
V," and as somewhat of a convenience in "Pericles" and 
"Winter's Tale" ; but we do not today consider it as any- 
thing essential, nor was it so considered in England after 
1587. It is to be found in "Gorboduc," in "Tancred and 
Gismunda," in "The Misfortunes of Arthur"; but in "The 
Spanish Tragedy" it appears as already changed in nature, 
and Marlowe got along without it, except in one play. 

We will not consider the mere mechanical division into 
acts and scenes. The school dramas of Senecan imitation 
observed the division made by the Chorus ; but many of the 
best Elizabethan plays were practically continuous, uninter- 
rupted presentations, or at least the manuscripts look to us 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 45 

now as if such were the case. So far as the quartos indicate, 
"Hamlet" was not divided by Shakespeare beyond Act i, 
Scene 2 (and the indication there is only a little more 
space) ; "Antony and Cleopatra," not beyond Act i, Scene i ; 
that is, the author did not definitely mark the larger divi- 
sions that the modern texts employ. All he indicated were 
exits and entrances. Division is convenient for the student 
and critic, but not at all essential to the structure of the 
play. Indeed, the matter is almost wholly a problem of 
presentation. Everyone knows that modern actors' copies 
bear other divisions for Shakespeare's plays than the conven- 
tional ones publishers use. For instance, Marlowe and 
Sothern present "Macbeth" in six acts, and "Romeo and 
Juliet" likewise. Ben Jonson did not divide "Sejanus" into 
scenes or mark any of the exits and entrances, although he 
revised the manuscript for the folio edition of 1616. 
"Catiline" was separated into parts only by the choruses. 
This confidence in the players and the recognition of possi- 
ble varying conditions in buildings and stages show the 
practical good sense of Elizabethan dramatists, who were for 
the most part also actors. There was a great difference 
between the court stage, with its luxuriance of costume and 
scenery, for which Jonson wrote his elaborate masques, 
and the platforms of the strolling players, or the limited 
facilities of the "private" theaters. Neither our dramatists 
nor our actors in Elizabethan days were concerned much, 
except in the masques, about mechanical inventions or 
illusions. Writers frankly appealed to the imagination of 
the audience and were concerned primarily with presenting 
in beautiful verse intense passions of interesting men and 



46 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

women living anywhere on the globe at any period of time. 
Jonson was concerned with something else, too, historical 
accuracy of character and quotation ; but he was not con- 
cerned in his tragedies, as writers were later in the Restora- 
tion, about the shape of the walls on the stage or the pattern 
of the floor mat, or just when one chair should be exchanged 
for another. Jonson was much stricter in small details than 
many of his fellows, but he had a large enough vision of 
true drama to know essentials from non-essentials. The 
division into acts, therefore, as well as the chorus and the 
so-called stage decencies, may be considered as non-essential 
— at least for this study. We are interested in what has per- 
sisted as indispensable elements of structure, and shall move 
forward, considering in detail only those larger points. 

The Senecan convention that undoubtedly made the deep- 
est impression on Elizabethan minds was the revenge motive. 
It is not surprising to discover, therefore, that it had a direct 
and lasting eflfect on the structure of tragedy. There were 
three marked periods of influence. First, the direct, through 
the plays themselves either in the original or in translation. 
Second, the return through the revolt against it, when Mar- 
lowe and Shakespeare sought other themes and a freer 
technic, yet gradually, nevertheless, conformed somewhat to 
the best conventions of Seneca and partly remade them. 
This fact is especially manifest in "Romeo and Juliet," in 
the Senecan elements of "Hamlet," and in the structure of 
"Othello." Third, Senecan influence was indirect, applied 
through the later fashions popular in English tragedy from 
1611 to 1642. The last phase we shall omit. Our study 
ends with 161 1. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 47 

Before we can appreciate the facts of Senecan influence 
we shall need to examine Senecan plays themselves and 
analyze one or two somewhat completely. The process may 
seem a little long, but we can hardly dispense with the knowl- 
edge. It is necessary for reference and for the understand- 
ing of technical terms. We need notice, however, only those 
matters that concern essential structure. 

Nine of the ten^ tragedies of Seneca have revenge for a 
motive of the catastrophe : revenge of a deity for the murder 
of a favorite ("Hercules Furens," Juno for Lycus; 
"CEdipus," Apollo for Laius) ; revenge of brother on brother 
for usurping wife and kingdom ("Thyestes") ; father for 
the supposed immorality of his son ("Hippolytus") ; shades 
for their own murder ("Troades," "Agamemnon") ; wife for 
desertion ("Medea," "Hercules CEteus") ; tyrant for favor 
of populace toward his divorced Empress ("Octavia").* 

Just as all the Senecan tragedies have the same general 
motive for the catastrophe, so all have practically the same 
form for the presentation of the action. 

The Senecan drama opens with a monologue or dialogue 
of retrospective and anticipatory import. For instance, in 
the "Thyestes," Tantalus, Maegera, and the Chorus succeed 
not only in laying the coming tragedy before us, but also in 
reviewing the history of Tantalus and thus explaining the 
presence of the atmosphere of crime and revenge. So in the 
"Hippolytus," so in the "Medea," we get a review and fore- 
sight; so in the "Agamemnon," where the shade of Thyestes 
puts the audience into possession of all the secrets ; so in the 

1 The Phoenissae (or Thebais) was not completed. 
^ "Octavia" is now known not to have been by the same writer 
as the other dramas. 



48 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"Hercules Furens," where Juno lays bare her mind. We 
notice this convention, however, about the Senecan ghost 
and other supernatural beings: they take no part in the 
subsequent action as do some of the Elizabethan specters.^ 

The Chorus invariably closes the first act, either by assist- 
ing in the narrative or by moralizing on themes drawn from 
the past or the coming events. 

The whole of Act i, therefore, is in Seneca practically an 
exposition, epic in character, but serving its purpose — since 
his drama (as we think now, though the Elizabethans 
thought otherwise) was intended for perusal and not presen- 
tation. The Elizabethan playwrigjit, with his acute spectacu- 
lar sense, wholly oblivious of Seneca's classical conventions 
of unity of time, began his play at a point as many days or 
years before the catastrophe as he pleased. Hence the 
presentation of action in the early Elizabethan tragedies 
begins much further from the catastrophe than does the 
presentation of action in the Senecan. In fact, it has been 
said that the Senecan tragedy begins just after what in the 
story we should call the crisis ; and the whole drama is little 
more than the elaboration of the catastrophe, or rather of the 
return of a deed on the doer — the retribution that ends in 
the catastrophe. That this statement is not wholly true and 
is slightly misleading, we shall see later in connection with 
the "Hippolytus." For the present it is enough to say that 
the first act is in part retrospective and expository of the 

^ The "Octavia" is a slight exception, since Agrippina appears 
in act three. She does not, however, affect the action. In the 
Elizabethan play of "Locrine," Albanact's Ghost snatches food from 
the hand of the starving Humber. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 49 

story that has already passed its crisis, and anticipatory of 
the catastrophe that is consequent. 

Act 2 in Seneca is in every case dialogue that sets the 
chief agent of the catastrophe forth in the act of planning 
the execution of his revenge ("Thyestes," a dialogue be- 
tween Atreus and the guard; "Medea," Medea and nurse; 
"Agamemnon," Clytemnestra and nurse, and so on). Since 
the deed for which this revenge is planned has preceded the 
time of the drama, the reader's attention from the first is 
directed to the catastrophe, which is to be final. For in- 
stance, Thyestes has already committed the oflfense that 
brings his brother's retributive action; so have Jason and 
Creon, that which brings Medea's. The execution of the 
revenge is therefore a fixed point. This emphasis of the 
catastrophe the Elizabethans did not overlook, and we find 
them in every instance sedulously caring for its effect. 

In Act 3 of the Senecan plays we have the antagonists 
face to face and almost on equal terms. For instance, 
Thyestes is a free agent and need not accept the crown, 
though his brother counts on his cupidity;^ Creon is king 
and need not give Medea a night in which to devise a scheme, 
or Jason may speak up like a man and thus save his soul and 
his children ; Phaedra has everything in her own hands, for 
Theseus believes her, yet Theseus need not be so gullible as 
he is about the sword. The condition within the drama at 
the third act is generally this : Dominance does not change 

^The dialogue with Creon comes just before the opening of 
Act 3 in the "Medea," and the dialogue with Jason within Act 
3. The two, together with the soliloquy between, form an inter- 
esting group, prototypes of a Shakespearean convention that we 
will take up later. 



50 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

sides — the ascendant force simply becomes stronger ; the one 
that flared up in opposition sinks and is lost. We can hope 
for only an instant that Jason will be convinced by Medea, 
or that Thyestes will refuse the crown, or that CEdipus will 
in the end prove himself innocent as well as ignorant. 

Act 4 in Seneca is sometimes, as in Shakespeare, the 
repository of incidents : the meeting of CEdipus and the old 
man; the prophesying of Cassandra; Poppaea's dream; 
hence it is the place used by the author for introduction of 
new characters. Or it contains the partial fulfillment of 
the catastrophe: the death of Hippolytus; the slaughter of 
Thyestes's sons; the death of Dejanira; Medea's prepara- 
tion and dispatch of the fatal cloak. 

Act 5 is given over to the completion of the catastrophe, 
either in further deeds visibly presented, — the suicide of 
Phaedra, the assassination of her sons by Medea, the stab- 
bing of Cassandra by Clytemnestra, the seizing, of Octavia — 
or in the recital of them by the Chorus; as in "CEdipus," 
"Troades," "Hercules CEtaeus." 

After we have looked at the action of the "Medea" and 
the "Hippolytus" and have summed up the revenge motive 
we will notice its course in early English tragedy before 
Shakespeare. 

"Medea" 

Act One. The tragedy opens with a monologue by Medea, 
in which she prays the gods above and below to visit 
vengeance on Jason, on the new spouse, on Creon, and all the 
Corinthian race. She reviews her own and Jason's history 
up to his present alliance and begins to discover that it is to 
be her privilege to punish the offenders. "But how?" she 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY SI 

asks herself, just as the chorus chants forth the nuptial 
song of Jason and Creusa, and ends the act. 

Act Two. Medea is enraged at the music, and in her 
angry raving strikes the keynote of the subsequent action: 

"Si potest, vivat meus, 
Ut f uit, Jason ; sin minus, vivat tamen, 
Memorque nostri muneri parcat meo." 

But because of her love for Jason, she immediately begins 
to debate with herself whether, after all, Creon is not to 
blame for the whole unhappy disturbance, and, asserting 
that he is, she declares her intention of reducing his palace 
to cinders. 

In the ensuing argument with the Nurse, Medea comes to 
the realization that, though she may have impulse and bold- 
ness, she yet lacks one requisite for a satisfying revenge; 
namely, time in which to mature a plan. She is to be ordered 
into exile, she knows, but she tells the nurse that she will not 
go until she has had her revenge. She comforts them 
both with faith in her ability to secure the delay; "for," 
argues she, "fortune may rob us of our riches, but not 
of our mental attributes" — when pat upon her words enters 
Creon, timidus imperio. By taunts and seeming submission 
she outwits him into granting her a day in which to prepare 
for her departure ; and then in very wantonness of conscious 
power she offers to let him shorten the time. She says: 
"nimis est: recidas aliquid ex isto licet." 

For Creon, this meeting is the test. He knows that he 
should not grant the petition. He even says to Medea: 
Fraudibus tempus petis. But, although, when she queries, 
"Quae fraus timeri tempore exiguo potest?" he answers: 



52 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"Nullum ad nocendum temptis angustum est mails." Yet he 
yields, and Medea is victor. 

The rise to this high point has been made through one 
stage — the gaining of Creon's consent. This consent comes 
at the end of the act, and makes a scene of much interest, 
one of an intense group. 

Act Three. The situation parallel with this, but surpass- 
ing it in interest, is the second scene of the third act. Here 
Medea faces Jason and dramatically recalls earlier condi- 
tions, emphasizes his desertion, pleads for his loyalty, and, 
upon being repulsed, renounces her children and pretends 
submission. During the interview she has found his vulner- 
able spot — natos amat — and she knows where to strike 
when she is ready. She pretends submission only to con- 
ceal her real purpose of revenge, in which she has finally 
been settled by Jason's hardness, and for which she now 
"bends up each corporal agent." After he leaves her with 
the smug suggestion, "miserias Unit qiiies," she vehemently 
rages over his heartlessness and rushes to prepare her re- 
venge, of which she outlines the first part, and thus gives 
again a clear insight into the catastrophe. In its intensity, 
in its recapitulation of earlier conditions, in its repetition in 
form and partly in content of a preceding scene, in its un- 
mistakable turn toward the catastrophe, — in so much this 
scene is surely an archetype of one of the great functional 
scenes in typical Elizabethan drama. We shall come across 
it often. 

Act Four. Act 4 in the "Medea" is taken up with a 
recital of the preparations for the revenge stroke, and con- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 53 

tains the incident of the sending of the sons with the fatal 
cloak. 

Act Five. Act 5 contains the catastrophe, which is partly 
recited by messenger, partly performed; the more thrilling 
deed, the assassination of the children, is apparently accom- 
plished before the eyes of the spectator. This convention 
of part recitation and part presentation the Elizabethans 
adopted; though, influenced by popular taste, they leaned 
more to presentation. 

Hippolytus 

Act One. The "Hippolytus," like the "Medea," opens 
with a monologue; but, unlike that of the "Medea," the 
monologue is not retrospective or epic, but spectacular. Its 
function is simply to introduce Hippolytus as a hunter. 
Scene 2, however, brings Phaedra forth, as the chief actor, 
in a dialogue with the nurse, wherein they reveal Phaedra's 
state of mind about her absent husband and about her present 
love. 

Act Two. Act 2, Scene i, accordingly, goes on with the 
revelation, offers the moral debate, and ends (as usual) 
with the protagonist's decision to carry out the first impulse ; 
but not, however, until after Phaedra has tentatively given 
up her desire and has threatened to commit suicide as the 
easiest way out of the difficulty. The threat gives oppor- 
tunity for the conventional discussion of the right "to be or 
not to be" (Phaedra, Dejanira, Hamlet, Brutus), and serves 
the dramatic purpose of setting, the nurse in motion. She 
promises to solicit the young man in behalf of her mistress. 



54 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Scene 2 presents the nurse in a vain attempt to induce 
in Hippolytus a conjugal frame of mind ; and Scene 3 brings 
him to his crisis, when he reaUzes what it is Phaedra wants. 
When he rejects her, he signs not only her doom but his. 
She must meet Theseus. 

Act Three. Up to this meeting Phaedra has been the 
leader. After the meeting Theseus seemingly controls the 
action. For a change is made by Phaedra's lie. This scene 
over the ivory-handled dagger starts the return of the evil 
deed upon the doer. Theseus goes out to punish the sup- 
posed offender, and, in having him killed, most effectively 
punishes the real culprit. Phaedra loves Hippolytus more 
than she loves her life; and when she sees his dead body 
she reveals her secret, defends him, and then kills herself. 
In a certain sense, however, Phaedra leads throughout. It 
is the calamitous result of her passion that is set forth. So 
with the original Greek. In the "Hippolytus" of Euripides, 
Phaedra's passion is the great feature of the action, and 
after the crisis she directs the course of events with her dead 
hand. 

Acts Four and Five. The catastrophe, as is evident, begins 
back with the report of the death of Hippolytus (Act IV) 
and ends with the suicide of Phaedra (Act V). 

The tragedy is wholly romantic in theme and in some 
particulars of form. It proved to be the antecedent of a 
long line of love tragedies from "Tancred and Gismunda" 
to the present day. The young men who wrote "Tancred 
and Gismunda" knew Seneca at first hand, but they need 
not necessarily have so known him in order to get sugges- 
tions from him. This play of "Hippolytus" was translated 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 55 

into English by John Studley as early as 1556. "Tancred 
and Gismunda," or, in its earlier form, "Gismunde of 
Salerno," was presented twelve years later. 

A good convention that the Elizabethans took from Seneca 
was the revenge motive. This statement may seem a little 
startling in the light of the many assertions as to the baleful 
influence of the Latin plays. But I speak advisedly. The 
Senecan revenge motive brought order out of chaos in Eng- 
lish serious drama, and this was no small contribution. 
Without it, or something similar to it, we should still be 
having backboneless plays like "Cambises," "Promos and 
Cassandra," and "Damon and Pithias." In the following 
review of some of the extant early plays up to 1587, we 
shall see how the Elizabethans gradually came to under- 
stand the advantage of a dramatic motive clearly empha- 
sized. 

Cambises. "Cambises" is one of the simplest of the 
tragedies and not very much affected by Seneca, as the kind 
and number of the personages and as the course of the inci- 
dents show. Though the author quotes Seneca, the action 
is not Senecan. The formula runs thus : A kills B, A kills 
C, A kills D, A kills E, A is killed by accident. 

Interspersed among these events are comic scenes. There 
is a change of motive for each of the tyrant's deeds and no 
reason for his death. The comic scenes are innocent of any 
connection with the main course of events — if there can be 
said to be a main course. That is what is lacking, a course 
of events, and that is what a revenge motive would have 
given this play ; that is what a revenge motive gives to our 
more decided Senecan imitations. Things just "happen" in 



56 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"Cambises" ; they do not "occur." What I mean is, they do 
not run one upon another for a reason. Now, in "Gorboduc," 
a Senecan imitation, they do so run. The deaths are conse- 
quential and revenge is declared each time to be the motive.^ 
"Gorboduc," so far as structure goes, is therefore a vastly 
better play than "Cambises" ; but the situations are never- 
theless epic, not dramatic. "Gorboduc," I feel, would have 
to yield to "Cambises" on the popular stage today ; for there 
is not a little good, lively dramatic business in both the comic 
and the tragic parts of "Cambises." The English, we re- 
member, had come in their long association with church 
drama to enjoy good situations and stirring incidents. The 
scene where the tyrant sets the little boy up as a mark and 
shoots him through the heart won the breathless attention 
of the Elizabethan audience, I dare say, and was as thor- 
oughly liked as a similar scene later with the Germans. 

The mother-motive of the miracle play is well emphasized 
here in "Cambises," and despite the early date of the piece 
is not ill presented. The child makes an endearing speech 
just as the king is going to kill him : 

"Good master king, doo not shoot at me, my 
mother loves me best of all." 

And the mother as she gathers the dead, though still warm, 
little body in her arms and wraps it about with her apron, 
utters this musical line : 

"Thy mother yet wil kisse thy lips, silk-soft and 
pleasant white." 

1 Act III, Scene i, 11. 163-167; Act IV, Scene i, 11. 34-81; 
Scene 2, II. 25, 136, 247. Act V, Scene i, 11. 19, 44, 53, 120. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 57 

The next to the last word is not altogether appropriate, but 
the line as a whole is exceedingly beautiful, and certainly it 
is a marvel among its lumbering seven-footed kind. 

We might notice the variety of motives that Cambises 
indulges in. He executes the wicked judge for unjust de- 
cisions (this is the tyrant's one good deed) ; he kills the 
child because of a frank speech of its father and to show 
that wine does not unsteady a king's hand and that even in 
his cups he "could doo this valiant thing" ; he has his 
brother put to death on the testimony of a liar ; and he deliv- 
ers his wife into the hands of Cruelty and Murder (ab- 
stract characters) because she wept openly in public for 
the death of his brother. The setting of this last scene, a 
banquet, was a favorite device with all drama, and very 
effective with tragedy from the miracle play of the last sup- 
per to Schiller's excellent use of the circling question in 
"The Piccolomini." 

But the remarkable fact about "Cambises" is that, despite 
its allusion to Seneca in the prologue, it misses the one valu- 
able thing which Seneca could have given it ; namely, a con- 
tinued motive. That the play was popular in its own day 
is attested by the parodies of the Cambises vein. The rea- 
son of the appeal lay in the stirring situations. There was 
torture (flea him with a false skin), and blood ran on the 
stage (A little bladder of vinegar prickt). Interesting to 
note, also Yonge Child's heart was cut out before the audi- 
ence. 

Gorboduc. There is a slight feeling of totality aroused 
by the "Gorboduc" action, but simply because everybody is 
killed off. The deaths are reported, not enacted. There is 



58 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

no idea of unity of time. Whatever unity of action there is 
comes from the sequence of revenge motives. 

Tancred and Gismunda. In "Tancred and Gismunda," as 
in "Gorboduc," there is a revenge motive; but "Tancred 
and Gismunda" is better constructed than "Gorboduc," be- 
cause the motive is single and strong. There is but one 
catastrophe, and it is definitely prepared for. The agent of 
it kneeling and holding up his hands to heaven makes public 
declaration of his intention. Confessedly Senecan, the play 
recalls the "Hippolytus" in structure and the "Thyestes" 
and "CEdipus" in two incidents. In the version we now 
have of "Tancred and Gismunda" we find the argument, 
the chorus, the five acts, and the (Elizabethan) convention 
of the dumb show. 

The plot divides itself into two parts, marked oflF by 
Tancred's discovery, which is made subsequent to the close 
of Act 3 and is reported in Act 4, Scene i. After this scene, 
dominance changes sides. Tancred, who has before been but 
a comparatively week antagonist, takes up the action, re- 
verses success, and carries the love story to a shocking 
catastrophe. Up to Tancred's report the action has been the 
triumphing of Gismunda's love over her father's opposition ; 
after his report the action is the triumphing of Tancred's 
opposition over Gismunda's love. The exposition is accom- 
plished, as in the "Hippolytus," by means of a monologue 
succeeded by a dialogue, in which the young woman sets 
forth her loneliness as a quondam wife, and speaks of the 
possibility of a new love. Though there is a slight differ- 
ence between the first acts in the two dramas (Phaedra talks 
to the nurse; Gismunda to her father), the outlines of the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 59 

acts are precisely alike, even to the introduction, which is 
practically spectacular in both, and the chorus, which gloses 
both. 

The second acts in the two dramas are also the same in 
outline: three scenes and a chorus each. Scene i is a dia- 
logue, in both dramas, between the young woman and her 
aged confidant, who promises to try to soften the opponent 
and induce him to live — in the one case, the father ; in the 
other, the young man himself. Scene 2 is the attempt — a 
dialogue between the confidant and the man, which ends in 
failure. Scene 3 is in the one drama a dialogue ; in the other 
practically a dialogue (except for a final speech by an other- 
wise silent spectator). The romantic character of the Italian 
novella, the source of this fable, carried the English drama- 
tists away from the Senecan form, but not so far, it seems, as 
some critics have thought. We might notice, before pro- 
ceeding, that the third act in each drama consists of three 
scenes and a chorus; that the discovery of guilty love is 
punished by the discoverer with death to the young man; 
that his murder is accomplished by agents and is reported ; 
and that the report causes the suicide of the young woman, 
a suicide that in each drama takes place before the audience. 

In the English drama the rise to the test scene proceeds 
through two stages : ( i ) the attempt on the part of Lucrece, 
the confidant, to gain the father's consent; (2) the inde- 
pendent action of Gismunda to favor her lover. The rise 
in the Latin drama is made through practically the same two 
stages: (i) the attempt on the part of the nurse to gain 
the consent of Hippolytus; (2) the independent action of 
Phaedra to win him. 



60 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

It is noticeable also that each man is preparing for a hunt 
when accosted by the confidant of the young woman, and 
each asks: "What of her? Is she not well?" And also 
each confidant advises her mistress to desist for fear of con- 
sequences ; but promises to help because she loves her, and 
at some time in the action reports to the audience the state of 
the young woman's mind. 

The test scenes differ because of the story : one is wholly 
enacted and partly reported (falsely, by a participator) to 
the avenger, whose realization of the crime marks the turn- 
ing point of the action ; the other is wholly reported, but is 
emphasized by the witness when he kneels and vows ven- 
geance, and in his oath outlines the coming catastrophe. 

From the beginning of Act 4 the English dramatists have 
a hard struggle to keep to the Senecan form. They seem 
constantly on the point of having the assassination of the 
young man take place directly on the stage, though they 
finally succeed in getting it enacted behind the scenes, but 
not until they have allowed Tancred to call Gismunda forth 
and tell her that he is going to kill her lover, and to call the 
lover forth and tell him he is doomed. The fourth act in the 
English drama is consequently much longer than in the 
Latin, but is conventional in containing a retrospective nar- 
rative of what has occurred between tlie acts. The report 
is part of the catastrophe. 

The fifth act, therefore, opens in the English drama with 
the conventional messenger's report to the chorus of the 
continuance of the catastrophe-deeds. In Scene 2 of this act 
we have a recollection of "Thyestes" in the present to Gis- 
munda of her lover's heart, which, after a bit of rather dainty 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 61 

rhetoric on her part, she drinks off from the golden goblet 
with some poison she has added. In the closing situation 
in the drama there is a fine mixture of popular and classical 
tradition : after a melodramatic farewell death-scene between 
father and daughter, the old man plucks out his eyes before 
the audience, apparently, and then, not content without an- 
other popular convention, commits suicide, in order to wind 
up the whole bad business. 

These last two occurrences were added to the catastrophe 
twenty-three years after the play was first presented. In 
the early version Gismunda died quietly and the old man 
simply wept. The addition shows the trend of Elizabethan 
tragedy. 

It is obvious that this play moves along with some degree 
of impressiveness, not wholly because of the sensational and 
unpleasant story, but also because of the preparation of the 
audience for the catastrophe, because of a knowledge of the 
motives of the actors. That the father and girl are at vari- 
ance we are aware from the first, how she outwits him we 
observe in the hollow cane scene where the lover gets the 
letter, and that the father will kill the young man we know 
from definite avowal ; but the spectator's excitement arises 
from watching the rest of the catastrophe discover itself. 
The gift comes as a surprise, the girl's response to it as a 
distinct shock, and the father's ending of himself as a super- 
fluity of poetic justice. It is truly an Elizabethan touch to 
kill the father in the same play. According to the Greeks, 
and even according to Seneca, Tancred's death should have 
been another drama. However, the point we mark here is 
that this play is comparatively simple and straightforward, 



62 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

and what kept it so against the many possibiHties of inci- 
dent was obviously the Senecan revenge motive that formed 
the construction line of the action and held the love theme 
down. In some of the later plays the love theme runs away 
with the revenge, and consequently with the tragic effect 
("Merchant of Venice") ; and in some, incident runs away 
with both love and revenge to the undoing of the general 
structure ("The White Devil"). 

But there is one great fault in "Tancred and Gismunda" 
which renders it unsatisfactory even as a Senecan imitation. 
The revenge is not in kind. For a full grown woman to 
refuse to obey her father's whim concerning a second mar- 
riage scarcely justifies his murder of her, of her lover, and 
of himself. The opportunity to make his caprice a strong 
enough motive was lost by the playwright through lack of 
characterization of the domineering old man. He should 
have been brought out as more of a Lear and a Coriolanus 
combined, or he should have been represented as having in 
opposition another suitor for his daughter, as old Capulet 
had for his, and thus so to have had his honor compromised 
by his daughter's disobedience as to be rendered desperate. 
To have asked the playwright to see this lack in 1568 would 
have been, of course, to ask him to anticipate the development 
of English tragedy. When "Tancred and Gismunda" was 
revised in 1591, "Romeo and Juliet" had not been put by 
Shakespeare into the form of a drama, and none of the 
"Hamlet" versions as we know them today were finished. 
But the elements that went to the making of the final 
inimitable "Hamlet" were fast gathering together. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 63 

The Spanish Tragedy. The play that fixed the revenge 
motive in the EngHsh theater and brought to every man's 
consciousness in its own day an idea of Seneca as an in- 
spirer of dramatic composition is "The Spanish Tragedy." 
It has continued to the present to stand to the general reader 
as the emblem of Seneca in England. And this position is 
correct if it signifies the fact that the great popularity of 
"The Spanish Tragedy" emphasized for both audience and 
playwrights the most important structural element that the 
Senecan drama could give to the English ; namely, a clear 
dramatic motive. The other English plays under Senecan 
influence had had revenge for an avowed motive, but they 
had only slightly and passingly treated it. "Gorboduc" 
rather emphasized the horror of civil war, and "Tancred and 
Gismunda" presented an old man taking vengeance because 
he had been disobeyed in an action wherein the prime inter- 
est was the love story, 

English plays before "The Spanish Tragedy" had not had 
revenge in kind ; and therefore the purpose of the killing and 
consequently the construction-line of the drama had not been 
emphasized duly. "The Spanish Tragedy" presented revenge 
in kind, and there could be no mistake about the fact. The 
play drew its popularity therefrom. The spectators not only 
might witness a catastrophe of the sort they liked, but they 
might watch it coming, long for it, enjoy it in anticipation, 
and justify it afterwards — all without explanations. The 
situation demanded it ; the play was built on it. Then, too, 
they knew who was going to bring about this catastrophe. 
Every word he uttered was for them important. They were 



64 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to be, as it were, accessories before the fact. Because they 
sympathized with him and desired the assassination, they 
shared in the action of the play. 

"The Spanish Tragedy" was deservedly popular. It held 
the stage for fifty years and became the progenitor of one of 
the most brilliant types of English tragedy and of one of the 
greatest dramas of all the world and of all time. The early 
play was popular abroad as at home. The English comedians 
took it to the Continent, and we hear of various perform- 
ances in Germany. Whatever one may say about the ac- 
cumulated horrors, however much its contemporaries might 
laugh at its bad Seneca and poor Latin and little Spanish 
(its pocas palabras!), it had a reason for being. That the 
author did not himself know at first what he was doing is 
clearly evident. It took him some time to reach his own 
play, his own distinct contribution. He wrote two-fifths of 
comparatively worthless stuff before he got down to the 
real action. Andrea, the ghost, recognizes the slow progress, 
and at the end of Act i queries disconsolately, "Come we for 
this from depths of underground?" 

Kyd, or whoever it was who wrote the play, started out 
to make a Senecan imitation. He had the "Hercules 
Furens" in mind and possibly the whole English Seneca in 
hand. "Hercules Furens" had been in English translation 
for about fifteen years and the black letter edition of all the 
"Ten Tragedies" had been circulating for five or six years 
before "The Spanish Tragedy" was written. I have nowhere 
else seen a statement to the effect that the author of "The 
Spanish Tragedy" probably had the "Hercules Furens" in 
mind ; but, to feel pretty certain that he had, one has only to 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 65 

compare Andrea's report with the report of Theseus about 
the nether world through which he and Hercules have just 
come.^ 

There are the same general sights, situations, habits, cus- 
toms and proper names in Andrea's report as are in that 
of Theseus and in the choruses that precede and follow it. 
For Andrea's disquisitions before and after the play, Kyd 
hardly needed to know other classical allusions than those 
found in the "Hercules Furens," except the names of Hector 
and Achilles and the items of the gates of horn. The last 
he got, doubtless, from the sixth book of the "^neid," unless 
it were already a common literary term. From the 
"Hercules Furens" the English author could also have taken 
the suggestion for the madness theme, a momentous bor- 
rowing that was to play an almost universal part in later 
revenge drama. 

"The Spanish Tragedy," however, is in many respects 
remarkably un-Senecan. For one thing, the acts are four 
in number instead of five, and the chorus that closes each 
act is in the form of a dialogue — though the fact that the 

1 The statement has been made that the Induction of "The 
Spanish Tragedy" (see J. Schick, Note i to the Temple Classics 
edition, Sp. Tr., p. 135) was very certainly conceived in imitation 
of Seneca's "Thyestes." I think this statement would be hard 
to prove if much more is meant by it than that Kyd had in mind 
the presenting of two figures from the nether world, one of 
whom called for revenge while the other personified it. It is 
perhaps true, rather, that the author of "The Spanish Tragedy" 
had the whole English Seneca in mind, and that the so-called 
"Second Tragedy," the "Thyestes," particularly suggested the frame 
work of the Induction, while the "First Tragedy," the "Hercules 
Furens," furnished the larger part of the content; in other words, 
the descriptions of the nether world correspond to those in the 
"Hercules Furens," not those in the "Thyestes." Moreover, Kyd 
need not have gone to the "Thyestes" for the idea of a pair aris- 
ing from the realms of death, since Hercules and Theseus arise 
therefrom. 



66 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

acts are four would not have been considered by Kyd as un- 
Senecan, since the "Thebais" and the "Octavia" (which were 
then thought to be Seneca's) have in the black letter edition 
only four acts. It may be significant in relation to the "Her- 
cules Furens" parallels that "The Spanish Tragedy" chorus 
is totally cut off from the rest of the play in the sense that 
there is no interchange of words between it and any of the 
actors proper. The "Hercules Furens" is the only Senecan 
tragedy where this total disassociation occurs; in all the 
others there is some interchange of words between the 
chorus and the actors proper. Kyd, therefore, wittingly or 
unwittingly was helping to make new drama by his 
emphasis. 

But newest of all was the material out of which the play 
was made. It is not, like the Senecan, old and well-known 
fable, but contemporary, popular, political gossip about the 
wars of Spain and Portugal. The author seems to have 
woven together bits of hearsay wath his own imagination. 
So far there is known no other play or novel containing the 
story ;^ that is, "the story of Horatio's and Belimperia's 
love; of Horatio's murder by Belimperia's brother, Don 
Lorenzo, and Horatio's rival, Don Balthazar, Prince of 
Portugal; and the revenge of Horatio's father, Hieronimo, 
Marshal of Spain, by means of a play where the murders 
supposed to be only represented are carried out in reality." 

It is with Act II that this story of somewhat closely con- 
nected events begins. Before Act II, as we have said, the 
author tries to start a revenge play in behalf of Andrea the 
ghost, a former friend of Horatio's, but succeeds only in 

1 J. Schick in the Introduction to "The Spanish Tragedy" in 
the Temple Classics. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 67 

presenting an induction to the Horatio-Belimperia love plot 
By its encompassing machinery of the chorus of Ghost and 
Revenge and by its first announcement, "The Spanish Trag- 
edy" professes to be, in Senecan style, the revenge of a 
ghost on its mortal enemy for a narrated reason; but by 
the evidence of its own scenes, the play turns out to be, in 
truly English style, the revenge of a man on the same 
enemy for an allied, acted reason. 

There are three fables involved, and naturally the author 
gets lost among them. He doubles on his track; hence the 
emphasis of the revenge motive and hence the utter shatter- 
ing of the unities. The revenge, however, when it finally 
comes, is entirely intelligible; for it is in kind — a life for a 
life. This fact is the strong structural contribution of "The 
Spanish Tragedy." 

Even the part of the play that professes to be Senecan 
is really something new and different. The author begins 
regularly enough in Senecan conventions by having the 
Ghost narrate in retrospection his own lugubrious tale ; but 
not content with this recital and overcome by an inclination 
toward the popular, the author tries to present part of this 
story in acting scenes, in a home-coming from the battle 
mentioned. Naturally, the dramatis personae only repeat in 
broken discourse practically the same narration as the Ghost 
has given. 

During these alternating Spanish and Portuguese court 
scenes, however, the author has really grasped the idea of 
this play, and with Act II sets out to present it. Here what 
is to be the Elizabethan English style of structure definitely 
begins. The author does not know what to do with a 



68 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Senecan ghost, but he knows what to do with men. He will 
present the murder of Horatio, Hieronimo's son, and then 
present Hieronimo's revenge for that murder! This plan 
will afford two favorite scenes causally connected. But 
the play, therefore, falls into two parts with the close of 
each part marked by the favorite event — a killing. The 
first division proceeds swiftly and smoothly and not without 
some lyric beauty through the love episodes to the murder 
in the arbor (Act H, Scenes iv-v). But here things halt. 
The Chorus reveals again the fact that the author realizes 
that he has not reached the all-important scene — the revenge 
deed. Accordingly he promises that deed, and by the prom- 
ise once more emphasizes the construction motive of his 
drama. 

Yet in attempting to carry out the punishment of the 
murderers the author happens on a fascinating problem — 
the hesitation motive as counter- force to revenge — and en- 
grossed with this he blunders on from scene to scene, going 
far beyond the length of the preceding action and really 
making a new play, the mad Hieronimo's play. That "The 
Spanish Tragedy" was popularly thought of as Hieronimo's 
play is attested by the fact that it is often so called.^ 

The early emphasis of this figure by the author and the 
appreciation of it by the public point to the gradual emer- 
gence of the consciousness of another essential element of 
great tragedy ; namely, definite characterization. What 
could be done with this revenge motive as a structural ele- 
ment and the madness and hesitator motive as character 
themes is demonstrated by Shakespeare's "Hamlet." 

* In Henslowe we find "Jeronymo," "Geronymo." In the 1615 
edition, "The Spanish Tragedy; or Hieronimo's Mad Again." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 69 

As a result of the study in the present chapter we are 
to remember that we find in early Elizabethan imitations 
of Seneca one motive strongly emphasized and more and 
more convincingly worked out as the drama proceeds from 
1566 to 1586. Besides this emphasis of motive as a con- 
structive line for a tragedy, there is a wealth of material 
indicated that very well anticipates the three main divi- 
sions of later English serious plays ; namely, Italian roman- 
tic passion, British historical legend, foreign contemporary 
politics. 

The Misfortunes of Arthur. British historical legend 
finds it representative among the Senecan imitations in "The 
Misfortunes of Arthur." Though this play has not much 
significance for us in the study of the advance of the struc- 
ture of English tragedy, we might pause a minute to note 
its relative historical position. Its action is a strife between 
father and son, and its theme is the incest-revenge motive of 
Greek tragedy. The play has a wider sweep than either 
"Tancred and Gismunda" or "The Spanish Tragedy," and 
it has this sweep because of its Greek suggestions. Indeed, 
in one scene it presents the great lonely palace situation of 
.^schylus's "Agamemnon," which it distinctly recalls. In 
the "Agamemnon," the "Choephorae," and the "Eumenides," 
it was ^schylus himself who started the very potent revenge 
motive on its way. Seneca transmits the stories, the names, 
and somewhat of the characters of Greek drama. The Eliza- 
bethans take on the form, the situations, and the construc- 
tion-motive of the Greek-Senecan tradition, but they find 
their own material. The best early example of their finding 
of their own material is this remarkably good play of "The 



70 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Misfortunes of Arthur." It is a tragedy that would not 
need to be despised in any tongue and a tragedy that cer- 
tainly would not have had so limited an influence in any 
drama less brilliant and hurried than the Elizabethan. There 
are some slight echoes in "Macbeth" which we will notice 
later. But the truth about this very regular and excellent 
play is that it was already, on the day of its presentation, 
a thing of the past. In form it was "of the old school." 
It was out-classed and out-influenced by a robustious fellow 
of the public boards. 



Chapter IV 
The Protagonist 

The fact that Ben Jonson's additions to "The Spanish 
Tragedy" in 1601-02 took the form of the expansion of the 
part of Hieronimo reveals the recognition of the shifting 
of emphasis that had occurred in the preceding fifteen years 
or so. The name that stands for this shifting is that of 
Christopher Marlowe. He was the dramatist who first 
in English tragedy definitely and almost exclusively empha- 
sized the protagonist, or chief struggler. Tamburlaine, 
Dr. Faustus, and Barabas are interesting personalities in 
themselves, regardless of what they specifically do. They 
are interesting rather for what they want to do. It is the 
actuating purpose of their lives that attracted Marlowe. 
Loudly disclaiming dependence on the past, Marlowe yet 
seized the most effective structural element that the past 
had evolved, and built his plays on it. He transmuted 
the abstract wish of a bloodless ghost into a life principle 
of a militant personality. Tamburlaine is the embodiment 
of the lust of power, Faustus of knowledge, and Barabas 
of gold and vengeance. 

The unconscious shifting of the dramatic motive from 
the heart of a ghost to the heart of a man had been made 
in "The Spanish Tragedy," and had been part cause of 
a remarkable success. What might not Marlowe expect 

71 



72 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

from a deliberate embodiment? Hieronimo's seeking for 
vengeance was not the full hatred of a passionate soul, but 
Marlowe's protagonists live and breathe only in their desires. 
Such emphasis easily results in caricature, as it resulted in 
Marlowe's own Merchant Jew. Yet the emphasis served 
our drama well. After Marlowe, no tragic character dared 
be purposeless. By this statement I do not mean that Mar- 
lowe understood or practiced a full motivation of character. 
Such exquisite work was left for our greatest dramatist; 
but Marlowe did understand and practice the motivation of 
a series of events by embodying in a typical personality an 
ardent passion. The protagonists of Marlowe's dramas are 
startling and potent. How far the presence of Edward 
Alleyn as a possible "Tamburlaine" inspired Marlowe's 
first production we do not know, or how far Marlowe's 
production inspired Edward Alleyn to be a great tragedian, 
we do not know ; but history is certain of the fact that 
Tamburlaine and Alleyn climbed to glory together. Part 
of Marlowe's conception of an overpowering personality 
might have come from Alleyn's physique. Alleyn was 
almost seven feet tall, and it is not impossible that Mar- 
lowe's description of Tamburlaine is also a description of 
Alleyn. From physical greatness we involuntarily expect 
great deeds: 

"Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned 
Like his desire lift upward and divine; 
So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit, 
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear 
Old Atlas's burthen." 

Tamburlaine. The play of "Tamburlaine" is a succession 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 73 

of scenes, each scene more turbulent than the preceding, 
with the most impressive coming last in Part I, and toward 
the last in Part II. The deeds of the protagonist do not 
react upon him to his destruction, in the sense of measure 
for measure. He dies, the progress of his pomp cut off 
simply by death, which comes in the natural course of dis- 
ease. His end is fitting, however, since he has called himself 
the scourge of Jove and at last finds himself subject instead 
of monarch; but his catastrophe is not punishment, since 
it is the lot of all men, good or bad, to die. Tamburlaine 
dies with his lust of power unsatisfied. 

The play has unity of a crude kind, although Marlowe 
was oblivious to Greek ideals and had set himself against 
Senecan conventions. His unity comes from the presence 
of a central figure with an all-absorbing passion. Marlowe 
had the art of establishing a thorough understanding 
between the hearers and his protagonist. "Tamburlaine" 
begins with the situation in Persia and with the "conceived 
grief" of the king, which is: 

"God knows, about that Tamburlaine, 
That, like a fox in midst of harvest time. 
Doth prey upon my flocks of passengers ; 
And, as I hear, doth mean to pull my plumes. 

Daily commits uncivil outrages, 
Hoping (misled by dreaming prophecies) 
To reign in Asia, and with barbarous arms, 
To make himself the monarch of the East." 

Scene 2, accordingly, is a well-executed presentation of the 
Scythian highwayman holding up the convoy of the fair 



74 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Zenocrate, and immediately demanding her person. When 
she hesitates over how to address him, and stammers out, 
"My lord," he says: 

"I am a lord, for so my deeds shall prove: 
And yet a shepherd by my parentage. 
But lady, this fair face and heavenly hue 
Must grace his bed that conquers Asia, 
And means to be a terror to the world, 
Measuring the limits of his empery 
By East and West, as Phoebus doth his 
course. 

"And, madam, whatsoever you esteem 
Of this success and loss unvalued. 
Both may invest you empress of the East ; 
And these that seem but silly country swains 
May have the leading of so great an host 
As with their weight shall make the nations 

quake. 
Even as when windy exhalations 
Fighting, for passage, tilt within the earth." 

After such high terms we expect great deeds. The mo- 
tive that directs them enters in Act II, Scene 5, just after 
Tamburlaine, who up to this time has been but the leader 
of an army that makes and unmakes kings, has put the 
Persian crown on the head of Cosroe, the brother of the 
Persian king. The words are inadvertently spoken by one 
of Cosroe's followers in reply to Cosroe's impatience to sit 
upon his brother's throne: 

"Your majesty shall shortly have your wish 
And ride in triumph through Persepolis." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 75 

Tamburlaine catches up the word. "Ride in triumph 
through PersepoHs," he keeps repeating to himself. And 
"Is it not brave to be a king?" 

"Why then, Cosroe, shall we wish for aught 
The world affords in greatest novelty, 
And rest attemptless, faint, and destitute? 
Methinks we should not: I am strongly 

moved 
That if I should desire the Persian crown, 
I could attain it with a wondrous ease." 

From here on we have the irresistible swing of the one 
mighty passion — "The thirst of reign and sweetness of a 
crown." The scenes rise in increasing truculence and in 
spectacular effect from that where the conqueror steps to 
his throne with his foot on the back of the victim, to the 
celebrated one where he rides on the stage in a chariot drawn 
by the four king^ of Asia. The poetry, too, rises to real 
grandeur : 

"The horse that guide the golden eye of Heaven, 
And blow the morning from their nostrils, 
Making, their fiery gait above the clouds. 
Are not so honoured in their governor. 
As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine." 

II : IV. sc. 4. 

But Marlowe's absorption with the person and motive of 
this his first play, resulted in a reversion to a non- 
dramatic type in the catastrophe. As we have said, Tam- 
burlaine's death is a natural one, and not consequent upon 
his deeds. Hieronimo's is consequent, and hence the more 
dramatic. Therefore "The Spanish Tragedy" continued 



76 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to divide the stage with "Tamburlaine." If a playwright 
meant to surpass these two popular pieces, it would be neces- 
sary for him to combine the strong elements of both. 

"Tamburlaine" was productive of much imitation, com- 
ment, praise, and parody, a result that in itself helped pre- 
cipitate the dramatic contribution. Peele, or whoever it was 
who wrote "The Battle of Alcazar," found in Stukely a 
bragging adventurer of Tamburlaine color, with the advan- 
tage that Stukely was British ; but Peele failed to make 
his character structurally potent. Indeed, Stukely is not the 
protagonist of "The Battle of Alcazar." There is no 
protagonist in the Marlowean sense of the word. Mooly 
Mohamet the Moor is certainly of greater importance to the 
action than is Stukely, yet Stukely is the interesting figure. 
Peele had not learned the real lesson of the new rebel poet. 
Perhaps 1592 was somewhat early for the lesson to be well 
learned ; yet the next year gives us Shakespeare's "Richard 
III." Peele's contributive ability proved to lie in another 
realm than that of tragedy. However, Peele has the credit 
of doing what Marlowe did not do in his first tragedy ; that 
is, Peele clung to the traditional, strong catastrophe. 
Stukely is stabbed both by enemies and traitorous friends. 
Marlowe proved that his pulses beat with those of the 
people, nevertheless, even if he at first overlooked the ad- 
vantage of a catastrophe at the end of his play. He gave 
the spectator such a series of startling situations as had 
never before been witnessed. 

Doctor Faiistus. In his next tragedy Marlowe, recogniz- 
ing the popular liking for a catastrophe, chose dramatic 
material that yielded a time-honored spectacle. The con- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 11 

elusion of his "Doctor Faustus" is effectively drawn. It 
had for Marlowe's age a tremendous tragic significance. 
The theme of the play has had a fascination for mankind 
probably always, and in historical record at least since the 
sixth century. Marlowe's originality lay in his choice of 
this well-known legend for dramatic treatment and in his 
emphasis of the impelling force of an arrogant intellectual 
personality as a structural motive of tragedy. The very 
idea of an insatiable lust for knowledge is at once captivat- 
ing and tragic. Marlowe rose to the grand possibilities of 
his conception only in places, but those are beautiful in 
both thought and poetry, one surpassingly so — all beautiful 
enough to hold the jaded reader of the present day and 
effective enough to have established themselves in literature.^ 
We have in Marlowe's "Faustus" an element of the Sen- 
ecan drama in the presence of a chorus, elements of the 
moralities in the Seven Deadly Sins and in the objectifying 
of Faustus's conscience as good and bad angels. We have 
Marlowe's genius at its best and worst: at its best in the 
beginning, the Helen-of-Troy scene, and the catastrophe ; at 
its worst, in episodes that take the place of what should 
have carried the action up to a noble presentation of knowl- 
edge as power. Instead of a rise to a high point, how- 
ever, we are offered the dreary vulgarity of performances 
bidding for the applause of the groundlings. The explana- 
tion of the failure may lie in the fact that crisis and climax 

1 cf. Goethe's Faust in his study at Wittenberg with Faustus 
in his. 

cf. "Rich. II," Act IV, sc. i, with Faustus. Sc. XIV, 281 flf: 
"Was this the fact," etc. 

cf. "Troilus and Cressida" Act II; Sc. i, "She i.s a pearl 
whose price has launched a thousand ships." 



78 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

as elements of structure were not yet conceived. We have 
up to this time clear emphasis only of the protagonist and 
his motive, in addition to the catastrophe. 

The Jew of Malta. The criticism that is generally made 
of Marlowe's Barabas is a mild disparagement to the effect 
that he did not turn out to be Shakespeare's Shylock. But 
that is exactly what he did turn out to be ! The passion- 
driven Jew of the passion-driven Marlowe became in the 
heart and mind of the sunnier Shakespeare a human being. 
He failed, however, to be the structural line of the drama. 
The later play is rightly called from the point of view of 
structure "The Merchant of Venice," but from the point of 
view of character-study it would, of course, be correct to 
call it "Shylock," after its greatest personality. But that 
is just the issue here: Marlowe's emphasis made possible 
such character-presentations as Richard III, Richard II, 
Shylock, Macbeth, lago, and King Lear. We can not 
imagine these as coming before Marlowe's work. To say 
that Shakespeare would not have developed without Mar- 
lowe is, of course, to talk nonsense; but to say that he 
would have developed without Marlowe in just the way he 
did develop is equally to talk nonsense. It is the mark of 
Shakespeare's genius that he learned the lesson of his prede- 
cessors and contemporaries and added his own contributions 
to theirs to make up the body of English dramatic technic 
If he had not added, he would not have been surpassingly 
great. But he learned of the greatest and added to the 
greatest in the greatest way, and no one has as yet gone 
beyond him. The question naturally is whether anyone can 
go beyond him, whether the combined Marlowean and 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY n 

Shakespearean genius did not give us, all in all, the greatest 
protagonists and plays we shall ever see. 

Edzvard II. Critics since Charles Lamb's day have pretty 
generally agreed that the catastrophe of "Edward IF' is 
one of the most intense of Elizabethan catastrophes (it occu- 
pies practically the whole of Act V) and is, to some readers, 
as productive of "pity and fear" as almost any in the 
world. Nor does it fail of being consequent upon person- 
ality. It comes about thus : 

Edward has not practiced consistent dominance over his 
nobles, but through alternate yielding and defiance has made 
them bold and traitorous. Self-indulgent to the extent of 
continual neglect of duty, he has risen at last to action only 
for a personal reason — to avenge the death of his minion, 
not to forward the good of his realm or to vindicate his 
fundamental right of kinghood. He wins the battles, but 
his personality costs him the ultimate victory. He consist- 
ently follows neither of two plans, one of which a strong 
king would have followed. We can imagine a magnanimous 
warrior after he had proved his right to do as he pleased 
forgiving the rebels and winning them to his support by 
offering them preferment and participation in reformation 
they would approve, li this happy result were impossible 
both because of his disposition and theirs, a provident king 
would have sent the arch-rebel Mortimer to the block, as 
well as the others. But Edward follows neither of these 
consistent plans. He sends some to the block, but commits 
Mortimer to the Tower, whence he escapes, flees to France, 
comes back with the Queen and the Young Prince and com- 
passes Edward's death. Yet Edward, with all his mistakes, 



80 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

is not unheroic, and his end is tragic and characteristically 
final. His destruction is accomplished in three steps: (i) 
the capture in the abbey; (2) the forced surrender of the 
crown at Kenilworth ; (3) the murder in the dungeon at 
Berkeley Castle, 

In addition to emphasizing the protagonist, Marlowe had 
demonstrated in "Faustus," in the "Jew of Malta," and in 
"Edward 11" that the end of a tragedy should appear inevi- 
table and consonant with personality. To realize what 
Marlowe's emphasis of a central figure with a persistent 
passion did for the structure of chronicle material one should 
read Bale's "Kynge Johan," Preston's "Cambises," and 
Peele's "Edward I." There is a title figure in each of these 
dramatic stories, but he is not individualized. The first is 
representative of religious tenets ; the second, as we have 
seen, has no motives ; and the third is merely a name to hold 
a string of incidents together. Marlowe's incidents, espe- 
cially in "Edward II," are pertinent. Moreover, to reiterate : 
his catastrophes are those of marked personalities. 

Shakespeare accepted this conclusion about the protago- 
nist and the relation of the catastrophe to the rest of the 
play, and turned his attention toward extending the idea. 
The growth of his art shows the development of the pre- 
sentation of personality into the presentation of character. 
Just as Marlowe's name stands among other things for the 
change of stage figures to stage personages, so Shakespeare's 
stands for the change of stage personages into stage human 
beings, brothers of us all. If our accepted sequence of 
Shakespeare's plays be correct, there is observable a grow- 
ing consciousness of niceties of structure very interesting. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 81 

We will notice in this chapter only "Titus Andronicus," 
"King John," and "Richard III," and these from the point 
of view of the development of the protagonist. 

Titus Andronicus. In the working over of older material 
that resulted in the play of "Titus Andronicus," there was 
brought a sort of unity to the epic succession of incidents 
by the emphasis of the revenge motive and the fact that 
the principal persons remain the same, though one after the 
other becomes the perpetrator of the revenge. 

Just how much Shakespeare had to do with the structure 
of this once very popular tragedy, no one has as yet satis- 
factorily demonstrated. His part has been assigned to indi- 
vidual lines and short passages, rather poetic than dramatic 
contributions. In the light of "Hamlet," an interesting 
"aside" of Titus's is this : 

"I know them all, though they suppose me mad, 
And will o'er-reach them in their own devices." 

The lovemaking of Tamora and Aaron recalls that of 
Belimperia and Horatio. Aaron himself recalls Ithamore in 
his diction as well as in his villainy. 

The superiority of "Titus Andronicus" to many ante- 
cedent plays is found in the management of the motives 
and in the situations, a bit of technical skill we should 
expect to find by 1589. The memorable stage picture, of 
course, is that where Lavinia writes in the sand with a stick 
held in hef mouth and guided with her stumps of arms. 

King John. King John is not the protagonist of the 
chronicle play that bears his name. There is no protago- 
nist in the sense of any one man who causes the action. 



82 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Shakespeare's work with the antecedent material in the 
"Troublesome Reign of King John" seems to have been 
the condensing of ten acts into five, the omitting of the 
comic scenes, the refining of characters, and the elaboration 
of the portrait of Falconbridge.^ This analysis accords with 
what appears to have been the progress of technic in Eng- 
lish tragedy up to the restaging of this old play. Shake- 
speare's additions show the focusing of attention on 
portraits. The explanation of the vogue of the chronicle 
plays as a type might almost be summed up in the two 
words "story" and "portraits." 

RicJtard III. At about the same time as the redoing of 
the "Troublesome Reign," Shakespeare produced "Richard 
III," a Marlowean protagonist's play. Indeed, it may have 
been written with a composition by Marlowe as immediate 
foundation. It has his characteristics, and we need notice 
them here again but slightly. 

There is the protagonist absorbing all the interest, doing 
most of the talking, occasioning all the action. He comes 
upon the scene precisely at the beginning, and boldly an- 
nounces his motive and intended villainy. He has proved 
to be a popular protagonist ever since his first utterance. 
His part has been the favorite role of many great actors. 
His astounding impudence and princely success, despite his 
ill-formed body (which in another person would naturally 
cause self-conscious timidity) take the spectators by sur- 
prise and win their "admiration" — in the Elizabethan sense 
of the word. The singleness in the eflfect of the play results 
from the consistency of the protagonist's motive and per- 

^ Cambridge Editors and A. W. Ward. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 83 

sonality, and from the fact that he is actually on the stage 
in four-fifths of the scenes. Those from which he is absent 
are merely the short connecting ones and the murder of 
Clarence. Richard mounts highest at the coronation (Act 
III, Scene 7). From there on his murders are attempts to 
secure himself. He is finally brought to his death through 
the open resistance of Richmond at Bosworth Field. The 
revolt begins (IV, 2) passively when Buckingham refuses 
to echo the king's wish for the death of the princes, and 
when Dorset flees to Richmond; but there is no changing 
of dominance. Richard is still Richard. He goes on to the 
murder of the princes and the wooing of Elizabeth. There 
is thus seemingly still an outward flow of the action from 
the protagonist to the world, but there is in reality a deep 
undertow from the world back upon the protagonist draw- 
ing, him down. The unity of the effect is secure, however, 
because of the delayed appearance of the antagonist. 

That word antagonist is one to contemplate in the struc- 
ture of English tragedy. We will devote our next chapter 
to it. One can not talk long of Shakespeare's protagonists 
without considering also their antagonists. The chief per- 
sonages, like people in real life, are what they are, not 
only because of themselves and their own motives, but also 
largely because of supporters and opponents. 

So much has been written of Shakespeare's protagonists 
in the way of character-study that we may well forego the 
pleasant exercise of repetition, and may cling more closely 
to the less familiar matter of the bare structure of the 
pieces. More important for us in this connection is the 
counter-play and the antagonist. Between ''Richard III" 



84 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

and "Macbeth," both presenting murderers, there is as great 
a difference in technic as there is in the portraits of the 
men. Between "Romeo and Juliet" and "Antony and Cleo- 
patra" there is as great a difference in the action of the 
two plays as there is in the complexity of the passions re- 
vealed. Yet the difference in both cases is one of change 
on the part of the public as well as of the dramatist, and 
results from a shifting of attention on points of structure, 
concomitant with the development of a philosophy of 
character. 

With "Richard III" we leave what may be called dis- 
tinctly Marlowesque structure in English tragedy, the over- 
powering presence of a single character. The device of a 
central figure was clearly emphasized by 1593, and no 
dramatist thereafter could be oblivious to its peculiar advan- 
tages, especially in the way of apparent unity; yet mani- 
festly also there was something lacking. Shakespeare had 
come across it at the close of the Richard III tragedy, and 
he chose to deal with it in "Richard II." 



Chapter V 
The Antagonist and the Action 

To dramatists who were also writing intricate and 
sprightly comedies a one-man tragedy would of necessity 
seem juvenile if not tame. It would lack interesting, com- 
plications however truculent the scenes might be. Besides, 
there was a potent fact that worked against the one-man 
action, namely, the sources of the plots of the plays. There 
are few stories concerned with simply one masterful man, 
especially among the stories from which the Elizabethans 
drew their material: the English Chronicles, Plutarch's 
Lives, and Italian novelle. In addition to the fact that the 
stage Tamburlaines are hardly natural in their general char- 
acter, such a sweeping progress of tyranny seems untrue; 
for an attempt at masterfulness usually arouses adequate 
opposition, and not necessarily in unworthy men. Shake- 
speare found this truth staring him in the face when he 
came to the end of the Richard III story. "Richard 11" is 
his recognition of the fact.^ 

"Richard III" is the first tragedy in which the opponent 
to the protagonist is of equal importance in the catastrophe. 
There we see Richmond asleep in his tent as Richard is in 
his, visited by the same ghosts as Richard is, and spoken 

1 If we should consider Shakespeare to have been at all 
intimately connected with the Henry VI plays, we might say 
that they represent, besides an interest in story and portrait, 
a sort of primer study in antagonism. 

85 



86 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to alternately by them with only the difference that Richard 
is cursed and Richmond blessed. The source of the play is 
responsible for the fact that Richmond (who is to become 
Henry VII on that battlefield) receives unusual considera- 
tion ; but Shakespeare chose the method of making him 
prominent. In true Marlowean style Shakespeare excluded 
any idea of remorse or twinges of conscience from the gen- 
eral course of the action, but here with the ghosts he brings 
in a slight touch. This was the popular method of indicat- 
ing a man's perturbation — to have him see the ghosts of his 
victims. It was also a Senecan convention — at least the 
appearance and the retrospective narrative of beings from 
the other world were Senecan. As I have tried to show, 
the Elizabethans from their ancestry already had a sense of 
the tragic and a liking for thrilling situation even before the 
Senecan influence; but reinforced by Seneca and the Ital- 
ian novelle the public taste inclined more and more toward 
the horrible and the gruesome. With their heavier imagina- 
tions and their lively sense of the dramatic, the English 
spectators preferred to see the thing done, whatever it was — 
murder or torture or battle. Shakespeare indulged them 
to the full in this play. 

"Tamburlaine" had given them the torture and the battles, 
but not the plotted murder ; "Faustus" had offered a sight of 
demons from the other world, but no battle; the "J^w of 
Malta" had afforded the plotted murder, but no protracted 
philosophical discussion and torture at the same time: the 
Jew was simply precipitated into his own cauldron. "Edward 
11" had set forth the torture and the battles but no ghost. 
"Richard III," however, offered them all — the tortures ac- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 87 

companied with sententious argument, the plotted murder, 
the ghosts, and the battle. No wonder the play was popu- 
lar! Moreover, it was founded on the beloved chronicle 
history, presenting a national figure, a great personality 
taking great hazards and dying bravely. The scene (V. 4) 

"A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse !" 

could not be surpassed for thrilling and desperate bravado. 
And finally there was the ring of patriotism about the end- 
ing of the play. 

The significant fact for future structure was, however, 
that Richmond went forth alive. In that fact there was a 
Senecan-Greek convention, and the atmosphere of more 
story to come. Of course, the ending was to an extent im- 
posed by the source; but so were the endings of the Greek 
and Senecan plays. The personages of the old dramas 
were no less known and their characteristics no less fixed 
in the common consciousness than were those of the new. 
Indeed, the heroes of Greek myth and tradition were better 
known to ancient audiences than were England's historical 
personages to the Elizabethans. Besides, what an author 
chooses for his subject somewhat reveals his idea of possible 
treatment; he realizes the difficulties at least before he has 
finished. Schiller realized them in "Wallenstein." 

What I am trying to point out is that Shakespeare adopted 
in the "Richard III" catastrophe a slight Senecan conven- 
tion, and may well have begun right there to think of 
tragedy not merely as a chronicle story with deaths in it 
but as representing a struggle. The mediaeval idea had been 
the "falling out of high degree"; but Shakespeare could 



88 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

perceive by looking at Seneca that the older and more 
truly tragic idea included also a struggle with powers out- 
side man and embodied in a definite personality. Marlowe 
had represented Mortimer as the opponent of King Edward 
II ; but Marlowe, after he had presented the death of Ed- 
ward, followed it with the death of Mortimer, in what critics 
indulgently call a little "epilog." Ideally the play of "Ed- 
ward 11" ends with the king's death, but not actually. Mar- 
lowe (in some ways the most dramatic and in some ways 
the most undramatic but surely the most obstinate and indi- 
vidual of our early playwrights) chose to add another trag- 
edy, the execution of Mortimer. This is truly an epic con- 
vention, no matter how dramatic the addition may intrin- 
sically be. Marlowe himself felt the new matter as another 
play, for he makes the queen remark when she sees the 
opposition to Mortimer, "Now, Mortimer, begins our trag- 
edy." The young king Edward III appears, therefore, as a 
new protagonist and sends Mortimer to the gallows and the 
queen to the Tower. He also calls for Mortimer's head, 
which is cut off and brought in. Edward unites the two 
plays somewhat, however, by placing on his father's hearse 
the head of his father's chief enemy. 

It has been remarked as another significant variation from 
Marlowe that Shakespeare weaves Nemesis into his play by 
means of Margaret's prophecies as well as by the presence 
of the final ghosts. Margaret is another touch of ancient 
tragedy, and Shakespeare seems to have caught the real 
dramatic function of the old choruses, although he does not 
write Margaret's part in the conventional form. He seems 
to have caught the idea better than Marlowe caught it in 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 89 

"Faustus" ; for in "Faustus" all that is said by the Chorus 
except the last stanza is narration. 

One more fact that testifies to Shakespeare's possible 
attention to Senecan matters at this early date in his pro- 
duction of tragedies is the description of 

"the melancholy flood 
With that grim ferryman which poets write of/ 

that we find Clarence giving as his dream just before his 
murder. 

If I were called on to name the first thing that marks 
ofif Shakespearean technic from what went before and what 
came after, I should say : the development of the antagonist.^ 
Shakespearean structure forms a distinct contribution to 
the world's tragedy. The result was brought about by a 
two-fold process, the conservation of all that had been 
gained in English practice and a return to the best in Seneca 
together with very definite and new emphasis. Accompany- 
ing Shakespeare's study was the gradual perfection of his 
own peculiar gift, inimitable character-revelation. I am 
not afraid of the word "study" in connection with Shake- 
speare's name. Every sane man studies to improve his 
powers: and Shakespeare was eminently sane. Moreover, 
the evidence that he studied structure is clear in his plays 
themselves. Many explanations may be given of this evo- 
lution of technic, and many factors, no doubt, entered into 
it; but we are concerned here not so much with the reason 
of the evolution as with the fact of the evolution. 

Two title-pages of "Richard III," that of the Quarto 

* Kyd's Lorenzo might possibly be considered a foreshadow- 
ing of the antagonist. 



90 THE EVOLUTION 9F TECHNIC 

of 1597 and that of the Folio of 1623, reveal a change in 
dramatic consciousness. The Quarto reads: "The Trag- 
edy of King Richard the Third. Containing, His treacher- 
ous Plots against his brother, Clarence ; the tyrannical 
usurpation, with the whole course of his detested life, and 
most deserved death. As it hath been lately acted by the," 
etc. The First and Second Folios read : "The Tragedy of 
Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, 
and the Battle of Bosworth Field." There were about two 
hundred lines added in the Folio, but none directly con- 
cerned with the emphasis of Richmond. What had changed 
was not Shakespeare's play, but the attention of the audi- 
ence. People were trained by this time to look for the 
antagonist, whether the changed title was consciously meant 
to reveal that fact or not. 

In "Richard III" the appearance of the conquering antago- 
nist is delayed. Richmond first enters in Act V, Scene 2. 
The whole act is very short — about 457 lines; but since 
these are divided almost equally between the two contestants, 
Richmond gets a good deal of emphasis. He is mentioned 
likewise with increasing prominence from Act IV, Scene i, 
where Queen Elizabeth says to Dorset: 

"Get thee hence ... go across the seas, 
And live with Richmond from the reach of hell: 
Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house." 

The next thing we hear is that Dorset has fled to Rich- 
mond. In an audience with Buckingham (Act IV, Scene 2) 
Richard muses thus : 

As I remember, Henry the Sixth 

Did prophesy that Richmond should be king, 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 91 

When Richmond was a little peevish boy, 
A king, perhaps, perhaps — 

Buck. — My lord!— 

Rich. — How chance the prophet could not at that time 
Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him ? 

Buck. — My lord, your promise for the earldom — 

Rich. — Richmond! when last I was at Exeter, 

The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle, 

And called it Rougemont : at which name I started. 

Because a bard of Ireland told me once, 

I should not live long after I saw Richmond. 

The next we hear is (Act IV, Scene 3, lines 45-50) : 

Ely is fled to Richmond 
And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen, 
Is in the field, and still his power increaseth. 

But we are not left in doubt as to who is the real antagonist: 

K. Rich. — Ely with Richmond troubles me more near 
Than Buckingham and his rash-levied army. 

Word comes in the following scene (433 ff.) : 

— on the western coast 
Rideth a puissant navy . . . 
'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral. 

And later (463 ff.) : 

Stan. Richmond is on the seas. 

K. Rich. — There let him sink, and be the seas on him I 
White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there? 
Stan. — I know not, mighty sovereign, but by g^ess — 



92 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

K. Rich. — Well, sir, as you guess, as you guess? 

Stan. — Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely, 

He makes for England, there to claim the crown. 

Then a little later, as Richard thinks more about the matter, 
he accuses Stanley, who has offered to levy men (491-2) : 

K. Rich. — Ay, ay, thou would'st be gone to join 
with Richmond: 
I will not trust you, sir. 

In Act IV, Scene 4, 534-5, we have 

the Earl of Richmond 
Is with a mighty power landed at Mil ford. 

Then we hear of reinforcements for him and then the mes- 
sage of the queen to the effect that her daughter Elizabeth 
shall be his wife. 

We shall see this idea of struggle of protagonist and 
antagonist (here confined in a brief fifth act) grow into a 
whole play — first, into a somewhat weak action still much 
reflecting Marlowean technic and, because of its lyrical qual- 
ity, really less dramatic than Marlowe's own cruder produc- 
tion. Then, after a total freeing of the poet from Marlowe 
by means of an Italian love story and Senecan conventions, 
we shall see these very elements of the "Richard III" catas- 
trophe grow into an elaborate and magnificent piece of struc- 
ture which, nevertheless, defeated its own purpose because 
of an English traditional element. But we shall witness 
also the triumphing over this mistake later. 

Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, occupies a much larger 
part in the tragedy of Richard II than Richmond occupies in 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 93 

that of Richard III. In fact, the first few lines of the later 
play present the antagonist's name by the King's own mouth. 
The spectator's interest is immediately aroused in Henry 
Hereford's "boisterous late appeal," and more in his char- 
acter than in his "appeal." The king calls him bold, and we 
see him both bold and brave, resolute where the king is 
wavering and weak, frank and straightforward where the 
king is shifty. When the vacillating Richard changes his 
mind and refuses to countenance the settling of the quarrel 
between Bolingbroke and Mowbray by the quickest method, 
and, instead, banishes both, we feel dimly which is to re- 
turn — the one the king, fears most and seemingly punishes 
least. Bolingbroke's patriotic utterances and his lyric fare- 
well would not fail to win the attention and concern of an 
English audience, even without the king's petulant descrip- 
tion of him as a wooer of the common people : 

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench ; 

A brace of draymen bid God speed him well 

And had the tribute of his supple knee, 

With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends' ; 

As were our England in reversion his, 

And he our subjects' next degree in hope. 

(Act I, sc. 4, 31 ff-) 

The whole play is practically a character study of these two 
men: the king the protagonist, and Bolingbroke his 
opponent, 

Richard's changeableness is well exemplified from the 
first, where he commands, then yields, then recommends, 
and finally displays the utmost tyranny without either 



94 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

bravery or consistency. In Act II, old John of Gaunt, 
Bolingbroke's father, limns Richard's character very closely 
and with his dying breath in querulous antagonism fore- 
tells Richard's deposing of himself by his shameful indif- 
ference to England's good. 

In this play, while the catastrophe gives the groundlings 
what they like (bloodshed and the knocking of life out with 
an ax) the elaboration of it is really neglected. The author 
is interested in the emotional meetings and the contrast of 
characters in the course of the play. Immediately on John 
of Gaunt's death, Richard indulges in the unjust and high- 
handed confiscation of Hereford's patrimony and thus, as 
York tells him, plucks a thousand dangers on his head, and 
makes the meeting between him and Hereford inevitable. 
Everybody is ready for Bolingbroke's return; and when he 
comes, even his Uncle York, staunch old patriot and gov- 
ernor in the king's absence, can but "have feelings of the 
young man's wrongs," although he calls the young man a 
traitor and a rebel. The suspense is kept up and the meet- 
ing delayed after Bolingbroke's landing by the absence of 
the king in Wales. 

Act II, Scene 3 is a preparatory scene, showing Boling- 
broke's increasing power as the nobles flock to him. Even 
the Duke of York says, "It may be I will go with you." 
From here on, the scenes are alternate between Richard 
and Bolingbroke, setting forth the progress of each toward 
the meeting, Act III, Scene 3. Richard partly foresees his 
doom, and while he hears Bolingbroke's summons to a 
parle utters a deal of his most fantastic and pathetic poetry. 
However vacillating and weak Richard is, he hates to revoke 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 95 

his word. He loves words better than deeds, and his 
greatest grief is that he must unsay what he has said. The 
revocation is the tragedy for him. He should have fought 
rather. 

"O God, O God ! that e'er this tongue of mine 
That laid the sentence of dread banishment 
On yon proud man, should take it off again 
With words of sooth ! O that I were as great 
As is my grief, or lesser than my name ! 
Or that I could forget what I have been, 
Or not remember what I must be now !" (11. 133-139) 

Yet we perceive that he does not really sense his destiny 
or feel the tragedy of it, but is rather pleased with his own 
embroidered melancholy (11. 143-158). 

He is king enough, however, to realize what it means for 
him to come down at the "traitor's" request. Lyrical and, 
as ever, playing on words, he says as he descends : 

"In the base court? Come down? Down court! 
Down king!" 

(Act HI, sc. 3, 183) 

And he comes down to his own catastrophe ; but not before 
the revocation has been elaborately repeated and emphasized. 
This matter of the reiteration of a scene at the middle of 
the play becomes a structural convention. We will look 
at it in another chapter. 

We must seem to turn aside for a minute from a study 
of the antagonist, to notice the evidence of the beginning 
of Shakespeare's consciousness of "the action" of a piece 
and his study of Senecan matters. Shakespeare's conscious- 



96 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

ness of action came about, it seems to me, from his pre- 
occupation with the idea of antagonism, and his attempt to 
enliven an old play with just those emphasized elements. 

The antagonist in the tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet" 
at first seems general like the antagonist, or counter-play, in 
some of our earliest dramas. And yet there is a representa- 
tive to be killed at each turn of the hero's fortunes. Romeo 
slays Tybalt in a street fray just as Romeo has consummated 
his desire in marrying Tybalt's kinswoman. Again, he kills 
Paris after they both think that Juliet is dead and when 
Paris comes to put flowers within the tomb and there meets 
Romeo by accident. Romeo's deed is in both cases unwel- 
come to himself, but it is a result of antagonism in general. 
The whole play is in a sense a study of antagonism that has 
become deep-seated and misery-bringing. "Oh, I'm for- 
tune's fool !" cries the young lover, as he rushes away into 
hiding after Tybalt's death. And though it is rather as the 
fools of fortune and of chance that these young lovers move 
forward to their catastrophe, they yet also seem to hurry out 
to meet it. They bring death down upon themselves with 
their own hands. Admitted that they do not court it, that 
it is not suicide of a premeditated kind, but is an impulse of 
fate ; yet evidently the impetuosity of love at struggle with 
an ancient feud forms the action of the drama. 

The end is predestined. This fact makes for a Senecan- 
Greek-Italian theme. The catastrophe is in only a very small 
part a character-catastrophe. The action imposed upon the 
theme was largely Elizabethan and new ; but the theme was 
old. The story, the course of events, the very scenario, 
Shakespeare found ready at hand. He had Arthur Brooke's 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 97 

metrical version of Bandello's novella, and the Painter's 
"Pallace of Pleasure" prose translation of Boisteau's French 
rendering. He may have had also an old play that Brooke 
mentions, vi^hich has not come down to us. At any rate, the 
events of this love tale were as well known and fixed as 
those of any of the chronicles, and were believed to be as 
historical. Shakespeare was in direct line with his own 
other work, therefore, in revitalizing characters of the past. 
Through the nature of the story, however, he was far away 
from the influence of Marlowe and very near that of Seneca. 
It is with its relation to Seneca that we want to study this 
play. Of course — and we might as well say it right here 
and we must never forget it — Shakespeare is always from 
now on in his own peculiar field, not plot-building, not in- 
vention, not soaring poetic discontent and magnificent re- 
volt, but careful and re-creative delineation of his fellow- 
men. This is the first triumphant entrance of that field, 
and the poet is only just within the gates; but he is within, 
for here are evident masterful strokes of dramatic portrait- 
ure. With a few words he fixes forever as individualized 
immortals such subordinate characters even as the nurse 
and Mercutio. In another person's hands these would 
be the tiresome figures of the confidants. 

But that is just the significant fact for us in this study: 
these are stock characters and this seems at bottom an old 
play, with many conventions of an earlier order. The more 
one studies the structure, the more one is convinced of the 
possibility. In addition there are tell-tale rhymes, puns, 
couplets, and declamation. Yet one is convinced no less surely 
that at the top it is particularly Shakespearean with the touch 



98 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

and structure that only the new expert artist, who was now 
sure of himself, could give. Reconciliation between these 
two impressions is attempted by assigning to the pro- 
duction two dates a number of years apart: one early, 
before the chronicle tragedies ; the other somewhat late, 
three or four years after them. But I have imagined a date 
even back of these two. Whether Shakespeare was remak- 
ing someone else's old play, or whether he was remaking his 
own old play, or whether he was remaking his own remaking 
of an old play written before he was born, a future scholar by 
diligence or good luck may be able to prove. In the mean- 
time we can only speculate. We have the final version and 
it is extremely interesting, in its structure. It is for this 
structure that we are going to analyze the play — not pri- 
marily as a study of antagonism, but primarily as a study of 
action. Shakespeare's emphasis of the antagonism will be 
apparent, however, as will also the importance of this play 
to his developing powers and his further interest in tragic 
struggle. 

The fact is perfectly evident that Shakespeare, in his deal- 
ing with the "Romeo and Juliet" action, was thinking of 
Senecan conventions, Italian material, and his own new 
technic. To a student of the old and the new, the impres- 
sion is as if Shakespeare had deliberately said: "Go to, 
gentlemen, I'll show you what is the matter with your 
ancient plays. They lack life, the life that captivates!" 
and had then breathed his own spirit into the Italian story, 
and set himself about the business of showing, how Eliza- 
bethan popular dramatic devices could supplement and vivify 
Senecan conventions. It is interesting to know that it was 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 99 

in 1 591 that Robert Wilmot tried to bring up to date his old 
play, the one with which he had been concerned twenty- 
three years before. It had been written in decasyllabic 
quatrains; he rewrote it in blank verse. It had left one of 
the principal characters alive at the end of the action ; Wil- 
mot brought him to death. Wilmot also changed the title; 
he wanted to emphasize the antagonist. The play had been 
called "Gismonde of Salerno" ; it was now called "Tancred 
and Gismunda." This new version was printed. The his- 
tory of technic is as if Shakespeare had seen Wilmot's at- 
tempt and had said, "That's not the way to remake a 
Senecan drama. Such a play will not 'go' on the stage 
today. Something must be done to the action: the antag- 
onism must be strengthened and the struggle emphasized." 
In "Romeo and Juliet" we certainly have action far in 
advance of "Tancred and Gismunda," and we certainly 
have struggle emphasized. Shakespeare chose material 
somewhat like Wilmot's, a pair of lovers meeting in secret, 
whose union if known would be opposed by the father of 
the girl; the lovers both coming to death and the father 
therefore coming to grief. But the two authors have used 
the two lovers very differently in connection with the struc- 
ture of the play. In a previous chapter we saw what Wilmot 
did with them.^ Shakespeare makes them both protagonists 
and he gives them each an antagonist. Romeo represents 
what we have come to call Elizabethan action, and Juliet 
represents Senecan action. Whether Shakespeare was con- 
scious of the fact or not (I think he was), or whether he 
thought as definitely as we have playfully imagined he did 

1 Chapter III. 



100 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

(perhaps not), he certainly gave us a marvelous example of 
the two structures supplementing each other. In "Hamlet" 
and "Othello" we shall see him remaking both 

We have only to recall our analysis of the "Medea" and 
the "Hippolytus" to remember what Senecan typical action 
is. The protagonist is under the control of outside forces 
that have gathered their strength before the play opens. 
The action consists of the formation of the resolve of the 
protagonist as to what to do and then the doing of it. At 
about the middle of the process comes the face-to-face meet- 
ing, of the two forces. The contest is mental and is ex- 
pressed wholly in words (not deeds), and the protagonist, 
settled in a resolve, goes forward to the execution of it, and 
thereby brings the catastrophe. The catastrophe is defeat 
for the opponent, if not death. In the "Medea" it is defeat 
for Jason in the death of his children ; in the "Hippolytus," 
defeat for Theseus in the death of his beloved son. The 
protagonist sometimes comes off alive (Medea), and some- 
times not (Phaedra). If the protagonist dies, he dies by his 
own hand, as Phaedra and Dejanira die. 

Juliet goes through a crisis much like Medea's, a conflict 
with a double opponent. She appeals to her father, and 
when he proves harsh and relentless, she turns to her mother. 
Like Medea, Juliet determines to use the intervening time 
between the announcement of the decree and the day of the 
execution of it to outwit her opponents. She defeats them, 
but goes to her own death. 

Now, I take it that Shakespeare knew where a Senecan 
play would begin, whether he was here remaking an old 
play or not. He knew, doubtless, that Romeo's killing of 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 101 

Tybalt and all that went before it would be retrospective 
narrative, that the information probably would be imparted 
by the nurse and Juliet, and that the play would open not 
far from the present Act III, Scene 2. In fact, Juliet's 
monologue has in it all the information necessary for an 
understanding of the relation of the lovers, and it is not 
unlike the beginning of some Senecan dramas. The "Medea" 
so begins with fifty-five lines of invocation by Medea to the 
goddess of Night and secret ceremonies, including a retro- 
spect of what has gone before. The "Octavia" so begins, 
with just the same number of lines (plus one) that Juliet 
uses. After the argument Juliet's "Gallop apace, ye fiery- 
footed steeds," etc., could well be the opening monologue 
of a Senecan play. 

We can pretty clearly see what would have been the gen- 
eral process if Shakespeare in his "Romeo and Juliet" had 
been modernizing an old Senecan-like composition, supple- 
menting it with material at hand in the popular novella and 
the metrical romance of Brooke, and changing all into an 
Elizabethan acting tragedy. But not to be impertinent and 
attempt to say what Shakespeare did or did not do, let us 
turn the supposition around and show how a pedagogue 
addicted to the old form would not unlikely have arranged 
matters and reduced Shakespeare's play to a Senecan 
"model." In other words, let us see if Shakespeare's play 
as it stands contains typical Senecan situations. 

After Juliet's opening monologue, the dialogue with the 
nurse would follow, just as it follows here and just as it 
follows in the "Octavia" and the "Hippolytus" directly 
upon the first retrospective narrative, or as it follows in the 



102 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"Medea" preceded by the marriage-song, in praise of Creusa. 
What the chant is to Medea, the throwing down of the 
ropes is to JuHet — a sign of the dissolution of her mar- 
riage. 

After the woful news and the waiHng (the Oh's and Ah's 
are typical of Senecan feeling), we find the announcement 
that the nurse will go seek out Romeo and arrange for his 
coming. This is a Senecan preparation ; and the next two 
scenes, were this really a Senecan drama, would be as in the 
"Hippolytus," and indeed as they are here without the addi- 
tions, the scenes of the nurse with the young man and of the 
young, man with the woman who loves him. In one of these 
scenes would be arranged the information about the Friar's 
future position as counsellor to both. If the writer of the 
old-fashioned drama wanted to put in (as it is here) the 
dialogue between Romeo and the Friar before the appear- 
ance of the Nurse, and then to continue the scene into a 
dialogue of three (Nurse, Friar, and Romeo), he could find 
precedent in Seneca. In the "Agamemnon" the dialogue 
between Clytemnestra and the Nurse is extended into a 
dialogue of Clytemnestra, the Nurse, and ^gisthus. Or 
if this were a strict Senecan drama with a chorus, the Chorus 
might take Friar Laurence's part of emphasizing the par- 
ticulars of Romeo's reception of the news of the banishment, 
and leave to the Friar but the shorter speeches in the con- 
versation. 

Now, of course, close upon the lovers' meeting would 
come the mother's announcement of the father's determina- 
tion to marry the girl to the County Paris, as it is here. 
Then in would come the father for the stormy scene of the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 103 

crisis, as he does here. He would be ushered by the nurse 
probably, as he is here, and the Lady Capulet might retire, 
or, more likely, the Nurse would not speak as she does in 
Shakespeare's drama, but remain silent ; for in most of the 
Senecan tragedies there are no more than three speaking 
characters on the stage at once. If there are more persons 
present than the three principal characters of the scene, the 
rest generally remain silent, as Philotetes does in the fourth 
act of the "Hercules CEtaeus."^ 

The writer of an imitation of Seneca, though, if he wanted 
the four people to speak, could find an antecedent in the 
"Agamemnon" where Electra, Clytemnestra, ^gisthus, and 
Cassandra are on the stage at once and Cassandra remains 
silent and hidden until dragged out at the end of the scene, 
when she makes two short speeches, the last of which ends 
the play ; or he could have found precedent in the "Hercules 
Furens," where Hercules rages around and Amphitryon 
and Theseus reply to him, but Megara remains silent except 
for two speeches of remonstrance to save her child, like 
those the Nurse makes here. This could therefore be a 
regular Senecan scene without change. 

The next scene after the crisis would be as it is here 
(without Shakespeare's additions to Brooke). Juliet would 
consult the Friar about her desperate situation, and they 

1 Messengers and chorus do not count, naturally. They are 
in most cases on and off at the ends of the scenes, and do not 
give the impression of being characters, but only conveniences. 
In the Senecan plays the chorus is not always totally detached 
from the action, as we see that the meager remains of it are 
here in "Romeo and Juliet." In the "Troades" the Chorus and 
Hecuba carry on a conversation. In the "Hippolytus" the 
Chorus speaks with the nurse and with Theseus. 



104 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

would decide on the sleeping potion and the sending of the 
letter to Romeo. These matters would about finish Act 
III of the Senecan drama. 

The next scene would be the beginning of the Senecan 
Act IV, which, as we noticed in the outline of Senecan trage- 
dies, is concerned with reports of the result of the crisis, of 
deeds taken place off the stage, and with incidents, wailings, 
and what prove later to have been preparations for the 
catastrophe. In the Shakespearean scene with Juliet, the 
Friar very clearly outlines just what will happen as a result 
of the sleeping potion ; so that the maker of the Senecan 
play could take over that speech without change (Act IV, 
Scene i), and would not need Shakespeare's subsequent 
acting scenes. Indeed, they would be improper in a "class- 
ical" drama. He would rely on this speech of the Friar's 
beforehand and a report by the Chorus or messenger later 
that the events had taken place. That is, Juliet's supposed 
death and the details of it would only be reported, as is the 
death of Hippolytus in Seneca. 

If the pedagogue wanted a reiteration of this, he could 
have the Chorus ask the nurse to repeat the circumstances, 
and she, amidst her own wailing, as here in Scene 5, could 
tell of the grief of Lady Capulet and the others, and of the 
funeral that is preparing. Paris, who would not have ap- 
peared in person hitherto in the Senecan drama, need not 
appear now. He could be taken care of by report. The talk 
between the Friar and Capulet (Act IV, Scene 5) could be 
adopted, since in its moralizing philosophy it has a Senecan 
tone. The musicians would be left out, and their part of 
comment be given to the Chorus. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 105 

Act V would probably open, not with a change of place 
and with Romeo, but with the Friar, who would tell about 
his sending of the letter and his now waiting for Romeo to 
appear. Instead of Romeo the messenger would enter (Friar 
John, who comes in Scene 2) and tell of the miscarrying of 
the letter. The next scene would be that of Romeo in the 
graveyard lamenting Juliet's death and telling how his own 
messenger had brought him news at Mantua and of his 
buying the poison which he means to swallow after he has 
entered the tomb. The Senecan writer could bodily take 
over Shakespeare's description of the apothecary's shop. It 
would be suggestive to him that the description is already in 
retrospective form, just as if it had been used in some such 
scene as this. Romeo would then proceed to open the 
tomb. He might not tell about buying the poison, however, 
but simply produce it at his next appearance. His words 
as he drinks the fatal draught, "O true apothecary, thy 
drugs are quick," would be sufficient to set the audience 
right. In the tomb (if the Senecan play were meant for the 
stage) the appointments would be meager. There was 
Senecan precedent for having the dead body on the stage. 
The remains of Hippolytus are gathered together before the 
eyes of the public (if it be permissible to imagine a public 
for Seneca), and Phaedra lies dead on the stage. In the 
old-fashioned play Paris would not appear. His part in the 
catastrophe is Elizabethan and Shakespearean. As Romeo 
utters his apostrophe and dies, the Friar might enter and 
Juliet awake, as she does in Shakespeare's play, and then, 
after the Friar has been frightened away, Juliet might kill 
herself with Romeo's dagger. Even this scene would have 



106 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

clear Senecan precedent; for Phaedra kills herself on the 
stage with Hippolytus's dagger. 

The remainder of the play would perhaps be carried on 
by the Chorus and the Friar. He might tell what is lacking 
of the Romeo and Juliet story, as he does in Shakespeare's 
play, and the Chorus, instead of the Prince, might moralize 
on the evil strife of the two houses. Or somebody might 
come into the tomb with the Friar, and Juliet might tell her 
story for him, as Phaedra tells hers for Theseus. Then the 
Friar's narrative could be left out. It is not necessary to 
retell and explain the events acted. Narration is for deeds 
not presented, is for the sake of the audience of a Senecan 
play, not for verisimilitude as in the Shakespearean. There 
would not appear in the Senecan action the many citizens 
and the multiplied partisans of both houses, who would need 
to be satisfied. These would be represented by the Chorus, 
which could be wise or dull as the case might demand, 
allude to the past or look forward to the future, and do all 
the moralizing as well as some of the weeping. 

But the reader is already protesting, "That old pedagogue, 
though he has kept the main part of the action and prac- 
tically the whole story, has cut out all the life! He has 
taken away what Shakespeare would be most likely to wish 
to have in." He has, indeed I Let us see what that is. It 
is for the most part the first half of the play. 

There is the street brawl. Though it is a fine pre-figuring 
of the state of feud of the two houses, the Senecan tragedy- 
maker could not use it. Anything so violent and full of 
life and directly presented as that is, is a new thing and be- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 107 

longs to the popular stage. This is the first use of such a 
beginning by Shakespeare himself either in comedy or trag- 
edy, though we shall find him employing it hereafter. Such 
a scene when detached is called the keynote scene, because 
it gives us the tone of the following piece. 

Old Montague is cut out and Lady Montague; for they 
have nothing to do in the real Romeo and Juliet part of the 
action, except to come in with the crowd at the end. If 
the crowd is to be left out, they must go. The pedant 
sacrifices a good deal of poetry with these persons and he 
loses the presented antagonism of the two houses, but to be 
"correct" he must keep the action simple. If the Capulets 
and Montagues are not to meet in a presented quarrel, there 
is no need of the Prince, either. He is there to settle mat- 
ters, and if there is nothing to settle ? 

Benvolio goes, too. His function is to witness to the 
happenings and to help bring out Romeo's portrait. But if 
we are not to see Romeo's temper and tendencies before the 
crisis, indeed if we are not to see his crisis at all and he is 
to be a banished man most of the time of the Senecan play, 
why, of course, Benvolio and Mercutio, too, and the scenes 
they are in with Romeo are to be sacrificed. The Senecan 
imitator loses much more with Mercutio than with any of 
the others except Romeo, but he must be content if he pre- 
fers a restricted number of persons, restricted place, time, 
and action. 

We cannot have the masquerade either. Such a thing was 
unheard of in Senecan drama. It strictly belongs to the 
vivacity of the Elizabethans. The street scenes leading up 



108 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to it would be excluded also, and the music and the running 
and chatter of the servants. We should lose even the "fiery 
Tybalt" and his altercation with my Lord Capulet. 

The first meeting of Romeo and Juliet, too, would be but 
retrospective narrative, used in Juliet's first confidences with 
the Nurse. But what an incomparable scene would be lost ! 
There is no use talking about it in the way of praise ; every- 
body knows it and everybody that loves a lover loves it. One 
might argue that since it is a dialogue, the Senecan adapter 
might find room for it just as it is. But he could not, as 
direct presentation ; for of necessity it must come before the 
of killing Tybalt and would therefore break the effect of the 
unity of time that one generally finds in Senecan plays. 
Obviously, much would depend on how strict our Senecan 
adapter of the story was. If he were very liberal, as some 
of the Elizabethan imitators were, he might present two 
scenes with the lovers, regardless of unity; but the proba- 
bilities are against the double appearance. He would be 
more likely to use the garden, the leaping of the wall, the 
moonlight, etc., for the beginning of the farewell scene, and 
hence actually present the lovers but once. 

Friar Laurence's gathering herbs and the Nurse's meeting 
with Romeo are but the direct presentation of facts made 
evident in the second half of the play, and though they 
furnish poetry in the one case and the favorite Elizabethan 
punning in the other, are not necessary to clear understand- 
ing. They would be left out. So likewise would be omitted 
the earlier and later scenes presenting Juliet and the Nurse 
before the opening monologue of the Senecan play. They 
are not requisite furtherers of the action, but are instead 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 109 

delightful character sketches. The Senecan adapter (if he 
were more than a supposition on our part, which of course 
he could not be) would hesitate to let them go ; but he would 
let them go finally. And if there were an actual writer in 
English of a Senecan play on the Romeo and Juliet material 
before Shakespeare was born (a far more likely supposi- 
tion), he would not have had the least idea of such scenes: 
they are not of his kind; they would not have appeared. 
They are thoroughly of the new age — Elizabethan; yes, 
more than that — they are bewitchingly Shakespearean. 

Now, the most exciting scene, we say, we could not have 
in the Senecan version. We should not see the fight between 
Tybalt and the brave Mercutio, nor should we see Tybalt 
killed. The first time we should meet Romeo would be in 
the scene with the Friar and then with the Friar and the 
Nurse (Shakespeare's Act III, Scene 3). — But enough of 
the pedagogue's restrictions! What does all this similarity, 
and dissimilarity mean? 

It seems not impossible that Shakespeare was to some 
extent using an old play and that it was decidedly of a Sene- 
can complexion. 

I do not presume to say just exactly how Shakespeare 
used the old play. Indeed, I do not for a moment pretend 
that there is any proof or that have advanced any evidence 
that he did not originally put the material of Brooke's nar- 
rative and of the "Pallace of Pleasure" together inde- 
pendently into the present tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet" 
and that the Senecan conventions did not come by accident ; 
or that he was not independently with fresh material himself 
imitating Seneca. But I do say that explanation by the 



no THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

hypothesis of an antecedent old play^ is easy, is reasonable, is 
in keeping with Shakespeare's practice in relation to other 
dramas, does not detract from Shakespeare's glory (What 
could be a greater testimony to his power of vivifying and 
perfecting?), and accounts for a few discrepancies here and 
there and for the often remarked differences in the style of 
parts of "Romeo and Juliet" as we have it. 

The idea that he might here be himself imitating Seneca 
seemed plausible enough at first to me, who believe in the 
advantages to a drama of classical convention rationally 
interpreted. But no other of Shakespeare's tragedies will 
bear the same analysis, and in those in which he was mani- 
festly keeping Senecan structure in mind ("Othello" and 
"Hamlet") we cannot discover such exact parallelisms to 
Senecan order as here. If Shakespeare were imitating a 
Senecan play, why did he not conform entirely to the model 
and abide by the restrictions? To say that Shakespeare 
could not have worked within the limits of the Greek- 
Senecan-Italian-French classical, or whatever-you-want-to- 
call-it, form and have given us great tragedy is to deny all 
probability, is to maintain that Shakespeare was not so 
capable as Ibsen. To confess that Shakespeare did not con- 
fine himself within classical form is merely to say that 
neither he nor his audience fully appreciated the benefit of 
it (though this play helped him to grow somewhat into the 
appreciation). Shakespeare realized the need of something 
far more necessary here, and he attained it — life ! 

If Shakespeare had had the old play and if it were any- 

^ See H. DeW. Fuller, "Romeo and Julietta," Modern Philology, 
1906. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 111 

thing like what we have imagined, it is easy enough to see 
what he would have done with it in general. He would 
have put into it what we have pretended to take out of his 
play. He would have breathed his spirit through the story ; 
then he would have set himself to the joyful work of impos- 
ing Elizabethan popular dramatic devices on the old action, 
supplementing and enlivening. He would have vitalized the 
characters and set them to acting as they do act in his play, 
not have left them in mere declamation and narrative. He 
would have interspersed the monologues and dialogues of the 
second half with connecting, directly-presented events. He 
would have introduced Paris, not have left him as a mere 
talked-about figure, and (an Elizabethan convention) he 
would have killed him off at the end of the action. Prefaced 
to all would have been a development of portraits. The 
Elizabethans we have said, and Shakespeare no less than 
any of them, loved a story; but they wanted that story set 
up in actions, not mere narrative. As far as possible, they 
wanted to see the things happen. They liked to be present 
at lively combats and to hear witty repartee. They preferred 
bustling scenes to quiet ones. Shakespeare has given us all 
these innovations in "Romeo and Juliet." 

Let me reiterate that I have not tried to prove that 
Shakespeare was using an old play. To reach a satisfactory 
result in such an attempt I should be compelled to take up 
other evidence besides the structure. The object of my 
supposition is merely to give a clear insight into the tragedy 
as we have it, and to show Shakespeare's preoccupation 
with antagonism and his attempt to secure lively action. 
Whether Shakespeare was making or remaking, we know 



112 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

what he has done in his play. He has presented as acted 
events whatever is referred to as having, taken place before 
Juliet's monologue and hers and the Nurse's dialogue. Those 
events are (taking them in the order in which they are 
alluded to and risking a little repetition): (i) the secret 
marriage of the afternoon; (2) Romeo's behest about the 
cords; (3) Romeo's slaying of Tybalt ; (4) Romeo's banish- 
ment. 

The first half of the play, then, is Romeo's half. He is 
much more like what we have come to call an Elizabethan 
protagonist than Juliet is. Romeo does a violent deed that 
turns his fortune downward. He "commits" his crisis. 
Juliet "suflfers" hers. His is a deed ; hers is a conflict of 
wills, a debate. His results in arousing outward opposition 
and punishment; hers results in outward reconciliation but 
inward resolve on her part of antagonism and counter-strug- 
gle to the death. He is no longer to be the director of 
events ; she is just beginning to act out her will. He rises 
to his deed before the opposition ; she rises to her deed be- 
cause of the opposition. 

This diflference illustrates to a degree what critics mean 
when they say that usually in a Shakespearean t'^agedy the 
direction of the action changes at the crisis, that forces 
hitherto dominant become weak and new forces prevail, and 
these new forces bring on the catastrophe by way of an op- 
position on which the old forces wreck themselves ; but that 
not so usually is it within the Senecan drama. Such is the 
relation rather between the forces acting before the opening 
of the play and those acting within the play itself ; hence a 
Senecan tragedy is but the second half, as it were, of a 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 113 

Shakespearean tragedy; or the second half of a Shake- 
spearean tragedy is but a Senecan tragedy added. 

Whether our supposition about an old play antecedent to 
"Romeo and Juliet" be correct or not, our analysis of the 
extant drama helps us to realize the difference between 
Elizabethan and Senecan structures; for the play certainly 
affords us an excellent example of the two coalesced and a 
parallelism in the very form and content of speeches be- 
tween a typical Senecan action and the second half of a 
Shakespearean play. We shall not meet this remarkable 
parallelism of scenes again, but we shall need to deal often 
with the two halves of a Shakespearean play. 

Of no other tragedy of Shakespeare is the literalness of 
the double-play statement so true as of "Romeo and Juliet." 
But, of course, critics who make that statement are usually 
thinking of the relationship between the protagonist and the 
antagonist in some other Shakespearean play where the 
antagonist represents the protagonist of the second half, or 
Senecan action. Here Juliet is not the antagonist of Romeo. 
She is a protagonist and has her own antagonist (her 
father) ; as Romeo is a protagonist and has his antagonists 
(the Prince, Tybalt, and Paris). Her play is not in the 
relation of a sequel to Romeo's, rather the contrary. The 
two plays, though seemingly put together end to end, are 
really in large part parallel and complementary, because of 
the amicable relation of the protagonists. I think, though, 
that Shakespeare considered the idea of the antagonism 
between their families. H Romeo and Juliet were enemies, 
Juliet's play would be a sequel to Romeo's. If Juliet had 
acted (as she in desperation pretended to her mother she 



114 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

would act) to bring Romeo to punishment for Tybalt's 
death, then Juliet would represent the second play of a 
Senecan series, or what the critics are thinking, about when 
they call the second half of a Shakespearean play a Senecan 
action ; that is, a retributive action. Or if Juliet had gone 
off with Romeo, and Juliet's father had taken up the punish- 
ment idea and had set out and killed Romeo, we should have 
the relationship that the critics mean to state about other 
plays. Capulet's action would be to Romeo's action as the 
"second," or reverse, or return half of a "Shakespearean" 
play to the first half. 

But such is not the story. Neither Juliet nor her father 
set out to punish Romeo. Juliet and Romeo die together. 
The two houses are reconciled, the antagonism is given up, 
and the two actions are coalesced. Naturally, the story im- 
posed the coalescence ; but it is conceivable that Shakespeare 
thought about the matter of retribution by an antagonist. 
There was opportunity in the story for a ghost's revenge 
play, and it was suggested by Tybalt's appearance to Juliet 
before she drank off the potion, but Shakespeare passed it 
over for the time being, with slight notice. He was think- 
ing of the relationship, rather, between the actual protago- 
nist and antagonist. When he chose material for his next 
tragedy, he chose a story with just this human retributive 
half. And he picked out for greatest elaboration the point 
where the protagonist and antagonist meet in verbal combat. 
A retributive idea is suggested in the Romeo story ; and a 
verbal combat forms the crisis of the Juliet action. 



Chapter VI 

The Rise and the Crisis-Emphasis, Including the Tragic 

Incident 

Shakespeare was emphasizing the retributive antagonist 
in the play of "J^hus Caesar." It is not by chance that 
Mark Antony's oration is the most memorable part of the 
action. Structurally, it is the highest point, and, so far as is 
known, is also Shakespeare's most original contribution. 
Source hunters have looked in vain for the speech else- 
where. All they can find is no more than a few possible 
hints in Appian's Greek narrative of the civil wars of Rome, 
translated into English twenty-two years before Shakespeare 
wrote. North's "Plutarch," which the author of the play used 
freely, does not have the orations which form the crisis- 
emphasis, but only mention the fact that they were given and 
the effect they produced, A modern writer^ thinks that per- 
haps he has found a partial source of Brutus's speech in 
Belleforest's "History of Hamlet," which tells "How Hamlet, 
having slain his Uncle and burnt his Palace made an Oration 
to the Danes to show them what he had done, etc." If this 
conjecture be true, it is interesting in relation to Brutus and 
Hamlet as character studies and helps reveal the possibility 
that when Shakespeare was writing the one play, he was 
also thinking of the material of the other. But the fact 

1 Gollancz, in preface to Temple Julius Caesar, p. x. 

115 



116 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

(if it be a fact) in no way militates against our contention 
that Shakespeare here was deliberately emphasizing the 
antagonist and his retributive opposition and was elaborating 
the crisis-emphasis as a part of the structure of a play, but 
rather corroborates the contention. Whether Shakespeare 
originated both orations or only one, or neither, the telling 
circumstance is that he did not find them written out in the 
story he was reducing for his play. He made them up or 
imported them for a special reason. That he succeeded in 
his emphasis, history as well as a reading of the play attests. 
The most valuable reference that we have contemporary 
with the early acting of the play is that found in Weever's 
"Mirror of Martyrs," printed 1601. It is the chief evidence 
used in fixing the date of the composition, but it may be used 
here as a testimony to the success of Shakespeare's new 
point of technic. It reads thus : 

The many-headed multitude were drawn 
By Brutus' speech that Caesar was ambitious. 

When eloquent Mark Antoine had shewn 
His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious ? 

Whatever the author of the "Mirror" meant by these 
lines, the fact is perfectly evident that the crisis-emphasis, 
the word-combat of Brutus and Mark Antony, the struggle 
of the protagonist and antagonist for supremacy, had made 
its impression. ^The people of Shakespeare's time did not 
miss the high point of his technic. 

It is pertinent for us in this investigation that for other 
reasons than ours, critics place the "Merchant of Venice" 
not far in date from the later version of "Romeo and Juliet" 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 117 

(1597), and the earlier record of "Julius Caesar" (1601). 
The Stationers' Register gives the year 1598 for the "Mer- 
chant of Venice" and the first quarto bears the imprint 
1600. This relative position seems correct.^ At least it 
corroborates our discovery of what was Shakespeare's inter- 
est in points of structure in a serious action at this time. 
The "Romeo and Juliet" relation we have suggested. The 
"Merchant of Venice" is almost tragedy. Shylock's punish- 
ment is in a sense retribution brought on by a special antag- 
onist. It is worthy of note, too, that Shylock is overcome 
by an oration, with reasoning in a sense as specious and 
politic as Antony's. But with Portia as the orator and a 
love story as a continuation, the final action could not be 
tragic. There is, however, for the Shylock action a tragic 
turn. 

Shakespeare meant to set Antony forth as a retributive 
antagonist of Brutus, not a contestant from the beginning as 
Hereford with Richard, but as one roused to action by a 
deed. In this relation Antony is not unlike a Senecan 
protagonist, who meets his opponent, the protagonist of a 
previous action, in a contest of words, pretends reconcilia- 

^ Another argument for the lateness of the second version of 
"Romeo and Juliet" besides its structural relations, would be 
the artistic kinship of Mercutio and Gratiano. I do not recall 
having seen this likeness noted before, but students could not 
have missed it. Moreover, "Romeo and Juliet" starts the idea 
of retribution; the "Merchant of Venice" shows it in com- 
bination with another love story; "Julius Caesar" has it in 
tragedy; and "Hamlet" is a whole play founded on it. The 
date of "Julius Caesar" is practically fixed. The "Merchant 
of Venice" is like "Julius Caesar" in a number of structural 
ways. "Romeo and Juliet" has likenesses to the "Merchant 
of Venice." The sequence also of these plays is therefore 
probably fixed. 



118 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

tion, but goes on to his own secretly determined purpose to 
punish the misdoer. Shakespeare thus has two plays to 
write : the play of Brutus and the play of Antony — or, if you 
please, the fall of Caesar and the reveng.e of Caesar. I do 
not think with Fleay, however, that Shakespeare actually 
wrote two plays on the subject of Julius Caesar, and that 
the one we have is a condensation of the two. Not at all, but 
rather the reverse, although the establishment of Fleay's 
guess would not vitiate our analysis. The technic seems to 
show that in the Romeo and Juliet tragedy Shakespeare 
got interested in the action-reaction idea and the verbal 
contest involved, and wanted to try them out. Whatever the 
reason, the fact stands that when he later came again to 
tragedy he chose popular material that had a retributive 
antagonist. But I do not believe that he was at this time 
thinking so much of the revenge action as of the mere 
reactive action. If he had been thinking structurally of the 
revenge of Caesar, we should indeed have a whole play from 
him on that motive, but with a more elaborate development 
of the ghost, an elaboration that we get later in "Hamlet." 
That he thinks of the ghost in "Julius Caesar" we know. 
It is far more developed than in "Romeo and Juliet." There 
he but touches lightly upon it. Juliet has an hallucination 
just before she drinks the potion : she thinks she sees her 
cousin's ghost seeking out Romeo and she cries him, "Stay !" 
Caesar's spirit comes into the tent of Brutus and speaks to 
him. It says that it will meet him at Philippi. But this 
incident is very late in the story and is retained from 
Plutarch to enliven the declining action. Shakespeare could 
have left it out, as he left out a number of startling details 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 119 

of the narrative, but he needs some excitement in the later 
part of his play and hence retains the ghost. The ghost, 
however, did not occupy his mind. He was primarily inter- 
ested, not in a ghost's play, but a man's play — the play of 
Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and Antony. 

Though the play is named "Julius Caesar" and though 
his personality overshadows the action of all, yet Caesar is 
not the protagonist in our technical sense of the word. 
Neither is Brutus really, but Brutus and Cassius. Plutarch 
distinctly states that those whom Cassius approached as con- 
spirators declared that they would not move unless Brutus 
were won to be their chief. Part of the action, therefore, 
consists in winning Brutus ; and Cassius does the winning. 
Two scenes are given over to this matter and they are very 
interesting. It is conceivable that in the course of writing 
them Shakespeare himself became fascinated, as modern 
critics are, with the problem of the influence of Cassius on 
Brutus; for Shakespeare gives us later an entire play on a 
similar relationship (lago and Othello). Structurally, the 
winning of Brutus is subordinate to the killing of Caesar. 
Hence, we soon find Brutus the center of the conspiracy. 
Cassius, though, does not cease to suggest and incite. In 
the material sense he is the motive force of the action ; in the 
spiritual sense, the thought of killing Caesar is the motive. 
It is the going forward with the idea furnished by Cassius 
that brings Brutus to the crisis-deed; to be sure, he enter- 
tains the thought and does the deed in his own high-minded 
way, but it is still Cassius's deed also. These two are in a 
real sense a double protagonist, much more so than Romeo 
and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet are in effect two protagonists. 



120 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

separated for a large part of the time. Brutus and Cassius 
are one, complementing each other always. Shakespeare 
has much to thank his source for, but the marvelous balanc- 
ing of these characters in imitable dialogue is his work, and 
it is superb dramatic achievement. His selecting of incident 
and his interpretation into direct speech is unerring. We 
cannot omit either Brutus or Cassius from this play. They 
are both essential to the action. 

As it is the following of the idea of Cassius that brings 
the accomplishment of the crisis-deed, so it is the abandon- 
ment of his methods and the following of BrutUo's that gives 
place to the catastrophe. Antony becomes the antagonist of 
both. Cassius had urged the death of Antony as well as of 
Caesar. Through magnanimity Brutus leaves alive the one 
man who would have ambition, personality, and power 
enough to bring the conspirators to judgment. Antony is 
not unskill fully introduced into the early part of the play, 
though he appears very little before the crisis-deed. His 
first words are, "Caesar, my lord?" and his next, "I shall 
remember." Such work is not accident ; it is put in delib- 
erately. Antony is the one who remembers when everybody 
else seems to forget. Hence the tragic turn of events. 

Antony, we say, is Shakespeare's first emphasized retribu- 
tive antagonist. We note a growing, particularity and im- 
mediateness of tragic struggle in Shakespeare's plays. In 
"Richard HI," late in the action, a representative of one 
kingly line takes the victory and battle from another. In 
"Richard 11" a weak king lets the power slip away from his 
hand into those of a strong and opposing subject, who there- 
by becomes sovereign. In "Romeo and Juliet" one proud 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 121 

house at strife with another proud house is brought to 
reconciHation by the death of their children. In "JuHus 
Caesar" citizen is roused against citizen for a particular 
deed. 

This deed is the material crisis. The consummation of 
it is reached in the first ninety lines of Act III, while the 
return of it on the doers' heads occupies the remaining two 
hundred and seven lines of that first scene, and all the two 
hundred and seventy-six lines of the second and the forty- 
three lines of the third. These four hundred twenty-six 
lines are the crisis-emphasis including the tragic turn. It 
is accordingly evident that in the mere number of lines in 
the play Shakespeare was much occupied with the return of 
the deed. The remaining two acts are, moreover, a continu- 
ation of this scene. Now, the material crisis, the deed, was 
definitely settled by Plutarch and history. It was not neces- 
sary for Shakespeare to create that ; he could simply 
transcribe it. His original work therefore as a dramatist 
lay in connection with the rise to that crisis-deed and the 
return from it. 

The rise to the crisis is well managed. It proceeds through 
one step — the conspiracy, which is divided into four scenes : 
the meeting at the house of Brutus at three o'clock in the 
morning, that at the house of Caesar a few hours later, and 
two little connecting scenes. One of these is to show us 
Portia, and the other is to prepare for an incident in the 
crisis where Caesar puts away the only chance he has to save 
his life. Besides the contrasting character-sketches, the re- 
verse parallel arrangement of these two larger scenes is 
noteworthy. The first one is between Brutus and the con- 



122 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

spirators and then Brutus and Portia ; the second, between 
Caesar and Calpurnia, and then Caesar and the conspirators. 
The assassination is the crisis-deed. 

Now, the occurrence of the orations was no less fixed by 
history and Plutarch than was the assassination ; but the 
writing out of those orations and the arranging of them as a 
crisis-emphasis is what occupied the creative power of the 
dramatist. The character portraits also were found at full 
length in North. Where the opponents meet in antagonistic 
struggle is where Shakespeare's play enlarges on the nar- 
rative statements, at the same time that it condenses the 
period represented and reduces the number of events. 

We find that Antony's prominence does not come upon 
us entirely by surprise ; we recall his first words, "Caesar, 
my lord?" and "I shall remember." In Act III he is there- 
fore "remembering." We recall, too, that the astute Cassius 
feared that Antony would remember. On the night of the 
conspiracy, when Decius asked Brutus if no man else were 
to be touched but only Caesar, Cassius spoke up and recom- 
mended that Antony be taken care of. But Brutus made a 
fine, long, philosophical reply, fooling himself with figures, 
and they now come back upon him with tragic irony. The 
conspirators have the first scene of the crisis, but Antony 
has the second, and the people have the third! Cassius 
had said, "We shall find him a shrewd contriver." It is 
manifest that no Senecan protagonist ever dissembled to 
better purpose than Antony. The immediate preparation for 
Antony's speech starts back in Scene i. With the stage 
direction Reenter Antony begins the struggle of wills and 
words. The two contestants are here most evenly balanced. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 123 

Brutus has the power, but is negligent ; Antony has no 
power, but is watchful — the Creon-Medea situation. Like 
Medea's, Antony's power lies in his "mental attributes," 
if he can but get a chance to exercise them. Brutus's prom- 
ise that after he quiets the multitude he will deliver to 
Antony the cause why he, who loved Caesar, struck at him, 
is about as comforting to Antony as Creon's assurance to 
Medea that he will look after her children — "Vade, hos 
paterno, ut genitor, excipiam Unit." Antony, with certain 
biting references to the bloody work that the conspirators 
have done, asserts that he doubts not of their wisdom, but 
seeks only the opportunity to accord to his friend the proper 
funeral speech. Medea, with biting references to Creon's 
unstable throne, begs only the time to imprint a few last 
kisses on her children's cheeks — "Parumne miserae temporis 
lacrimis negas?" When Creon yields her a day, she says : 

Nim is est; recidas aliquid ex isto licet. 
Et ipsa propero. 

When Brutus tells Antony, 

'you shall speak 
In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
After my speech is ended,' 

Antony says, 

*Be it so; 
I do desire no more.* 

The shrewd Cassius, like the shrewd Creon, felt the mis- 
take while it was being made, but could not stop it. The 



124 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

conspirators must now abide the consequences. Mark 
Antony turns to prepare the body as the murderers leave, and 
offers his prophecy of wide-sweeping ruin and civil strife, 
"with Caesar's spirit raging for revenge." The allusions to 
"Ate," "hell," "revenge," and "havoc" surely do not lack 
Senecan tone. Medea threatens, 

'invadam deos, 
Et cuncta quatiam!' 

and every schoolboy knows how Antony shook the whole 
round world. 

This somewhat far-away likeness does not mean that 
Shakespeare was copying Seneca, but that Shakespeare was 
thinking a good deal about Senecan technic, especially the 
structure. I say "especially the structure" because, while 
the great scene of the crisis-emphasis is Greek-Senecan in 
framework (the same chorus of citizens answering in turn 
the speech and fervor of declamatory contestants), it is truly 
Shakespearean in its thought and beauty. Shakespeare uses 
Plutarch's narrative of the results of the speech with true 
dramatic and forensic insight. We feel that Antony must 
have spoken and acted just so. Our conception of him as an 
orator is derived wholly from Shakespeare. We feel that 
Shakespeare is only reporting and that this is the actual 
scene ; yet we know that even Plutarch, Shakespeare's source, 
is very different. This is Shakespeare's oratory that we 
hear, as is Brutus's speech also. Shakespeare had an ex- 
ample of Brutus's laconic diction in some letters reported in 
Plutarch, but the speech, like Antony's, is invented. How 
different is it from Antony's, yet how characteristic of the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 125 

proud, impractical philosopher that Brutus was ! Massinger, 
a close student of Shakespeare, adopts the oration device, 
which he uses more than once and to good effect (three 
times in a singje play), but he never reaches the height of his 
master. 

It is not the fact that this scene is composed of orations, 
however, that makes it technically the scene of the crisis- 
emphasis, but the fact that it recalls the crisis-deed, intensifies 
it, interprets it, and with a surprising turn makes it fatal to 
the conspirators. The effect has been prepared for, we say, 
but it is none the less startling ; for it is the coming into recog- 
nized consciousness of what has all along, in the rise to the 
crisis, been subconsciously awaited. What comes, however, 
as a result of Antony's speech is not the catastrophe, which 
on reflection we think we really expected, but a tragic turn 
following the tragic incident. Hence the action of the play 
is not finished, but only turned irrevocably toward the catas- 
trophe, which is yet to be acted out. 

By tragic incident is meant that small happening that 
emphasizes the spirit of the tragedy as a whole, or the events 
of the crisis just past, and illuminates the course of dis- 
aster already entered upon or about to be entered upon by 
the protagonist. If the downward fall toward defeat and 
death is not already clear, then the tragic incident becomes 
a tragic turn. In "J^^^^s Caesar" the course of the action 
is changed by a fatal mistake of Brutus's. The mistake 
results from an inherent excellence in character. Out of 
philosophical generosity and high-toned pride Brutus gives 
Antony leave to speak, and even escorts him to the rostrum 
and orders the people to stay and hear. The surprising 



126 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

response that follows Antony's speech with the turn of 
events against the conspirators is consequently Brutus's own 
doing, is therefore truly tragic. 

It is this emphasis of the return of the deed, however, that 
cuts the play in two. By Antony's reviewing of the con- 
spirators' action, he starts a revolt and occasions his own 
supremacy. The downfall of the conspirators is in a sense 
the rise of Antony. He goes forth alive at the end of the 
play like a Senecan protagonist. The play has two crises, 
then, or crisis-deed and crisis-emphasis, as we technically 
call them : the stabbing of Caesar by the Brutus conspirators, 
and the struggle of Brutus and Antony in debate. The crisis- 
emphasis includes the tragic turn. But unity is lost here 
that was retained in "Romeo and Juliet." Since there the 
two crises were divided between the two protagonists and 
victory went with one of the protagonists, the play could be 
continued without a loss of interest. Here, however, the 
crises are divided between the protagonist and the an- 
tagonist, and the final victory is with the antagonist. The 
protagonists' action is accordingly in one sense really done 
at the middle of the drama. Thereafter Brutus and Cassius 
are on the defensive. When they flee from Rome, the 
spectators' interest naturally lapses. Antony has not been 
long enough before the minds of the spectators for them 
to take as deep an interest in his further actions as in 
those he has just finished on the immediate scene of the 
crisis. His part has really been to emphasize the crisis 
and form the climax of the play. 

Herewith climax becomes to Shakespeare a definite prob- 
lem. We shall find him pursuing it closely, and finally con- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 127 

quering. He realized that the crisis-emphasis is a strong 
point of structure, as is shown by the fact that he employed 
it consistently thereafter, but without the mistake that he 
makes in this play. He changes the position of the crisis 
in subsequent tragedies, he changes the relation of the antag- 
onist, but he keeps the crisis-emphasis as it is here in place 
and function. 

"Julius Caesar" is one of the best known, if not the very 
best known, of Shakespeare's plays. It has been translated 
into "the strangest" languages and dialects, and its action 
has often been taken as typically Shakespearean. In one 
sense, this idea is correct ; in another, it is very misleading. 
There is hardly such a thing as a typically Shakespearean 
tragic action. Shakespeare is constantly experimenting, and 
as a practical playwright is always improving in some points. 
He can go often beyond himself even if others cannot go 
beyond him. But in one sense this double action of "Julius 
Caesar" is typical of all Elizabethan tragedies — that is, in 
the sense that the action of each play is carried out to the 
end of the life of those who began it. The generally ac- 
cepted emphasis of the catastrophe as death to all is probably 
responsible partly for this convention, Shakespeare is also 
partly responsible. The crisis that Shakespeare has in the 
middle of the play of "Julius Caesar" is really in one sense 
a catastrophe — the close of the Caesar-Brutus tragic action ; 
but Shakespeare is interested in the return stroke and will 
not stop. He goes on to the tragic-emphasis of this crisis 
and the emphasis of the antagonist (the Brutus-Antony 
action) to the dividing of his play. But that he realized 
both his success and his failure seems patent. At least it 



128 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

seems patent to those who, knowing his past development, 
study his next play. 

But before we go on to that analysis we ought to stop to 
sum up what Shakespeare has arrived at in "Julius Caesar," 
and to try to conceive what critics mean by a "typical 
Shakespearean action." We see that Brutus is represented 
as gradually rising to a terrible deed in an extremely charac- 
teristic way, and that the issuing of that deed out of the 
character of Brutus causes a reaction in which Brutus and 
his associates go down to a death catastrophe. We know 
that the going down and the death catastrophe were well 
established hitherto, as was also the doing of deeds, murders, 
suicides, fights, executions, or what not, before the end or 
even the middle of the play ; but "Julius Caesar" is the first 
of our extant tragedies in which we see the protagonist 
definitely and steadily rise to a single crisis deed, willed by 
him, expected by the audience, and elaborately executed in a 
well-organized scene or scene-gxoup, unpreceded by violent 
and distracting incidents. 

Now let us look at Shakespeare's earlier tragedies to see 
whether it is true that there is in none of them a steady rise 
to a definite crisis. The action of "Richard III" is a series 
of murders with the most directly presented coming in the 
first act. The king in "Richard 11" wavers among banish- 
ment decrees, wars, recalls, resistance, and abdication. There 
are at least three places for a crisis. In Act IV, Scene i, 
there is a repetition of the meeting of Richard and Boling- 
broke which occurred in Act III, Scene 3, about the matter 
of supremacy. In Act IV Bolingbroke calls upon Richard to 
deliver the crown, and Richard hands it over with much 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 129 

accompanying sentimentality and rhetoric. This scene is 
quite fantastic, but it has in it some beautiful verse and a 
passage or two of acute pathos. As Richard "ravels out" his 
"weaved-up folly," however, we get a little tired. The scene 
had possibilities for a crisis-emphasis, if the details had only 
been restrained and if there had been a definite crisis to em- 
phasize. With this scene to reinforce it, Richard's abject 
yielding to Bolingbroke in Act III might have been made a 
definite point of technic. After it, we see Bolingbroke 
ruling. He holds the trial of Aumerle. But the reinforcing 
scene is out of place. It is somewhat of a setback to view a 
second time the meeting of Richard and Bolingbroke over 
the matter of supremacy. The later scene has the effect of 
recalling the earlier, but rather as a far-off echo than as a 
good strong accompaniment. Moreover, the other scene, 
while logically the crisis, is not made clearly so in the drama ; 
for before it Bolingbroke is presented as already exercising 
kingly prerogative in Act III, Scene i ; that is, sending 
Bushy and Greene to death by a decree. By the time we 
reach the reiteration of the meeting, therefore, he has exer- 
cised royal power for seven hundred and ninety-four lines. 
These fluctuations of a possibly definite point of technic 
convince us that though Shakespeare had a firm idea of the 
clash of characters, he had not yet in 1597 clearly conceived 
the structural function of the middle of the play as crisis or 
crisis-emphasis, nor the rise to these. The one would have 
made the other two. Or, perhaps, as the order of my chap- 
ters in this book reveals that I suspect, the crisis-emphasis 
as an artistic entity really came into consciousness before the 
crisis as a purely artistic entity developed. It seems that the 



130 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

result of the crisis-emphasis in "Jwhus Caesar" occasioned 
the making of subsequent narrative crises into dramatic 
crises. 

A bit of historical evidence is interesting here. For we 
know that these lines (Act IV, Scene i, 154-318) did not ap- 
pear in the first published or acted (?) version of the play 
(Quarto One, 1597), but came into notice with Quarto 
Three, 1608, the title-page of which reads, "zvith new addi- 
tions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King 
Richard, as it has been lately acted by the Kinges Majesties 
servantes at the Globe." The interpretation of the appear- 
ance of these lines for the first time so late as 1608 has 
usually been that they were the mere restoring of a scene 
originally written when the rest of the play was composed, 
but suppressed because of Elizabeth's aversion to any men- 
tion of deposition and her particular susceptibility about 
Richard II. Indeed, historical record of the suppression of 
other references to the deposition would bear out this the- 
ory. Were this solution not so easy, the student of structure 
might ofifer another; namely, that after 1600 Shakespeare 
was conscious of the crisis-deed and crisis-emphasis as points 
of structure, and returned to an earlier play and inserted or 
restored a scene in order to strengthen the middle of the 
action. Perhaps Shakespeare had come to think that the 
ascending of the throne was the deed that marked the real 
crisis and that the emphasis of that would be serviceable to 
the whole effect. If such were his thought, this insertion 
would be natural, and would come, as it does, immediately 
after Carlisle's objection to Bolingbroke's 

"In God's name I'll ascend the regal throne." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 131 

This face-to-face meeting of Bolingbroke and Richard, 
where they both hold the material crown literally by either 
side, would be indeed a crisis-emphasis if, as we have said, 
there were a preceding crisis ; for a crisis-emphasis is a 
scene that does not actually repeat an earlier, but in some 
adequate way compels a mental review of the action up to 
that point and intensifies the crisis by indicating the tragic 
results of what has gone before and by anticipating the 
catastrophe through suggestion and a tragic incident. 

In either case, we are left with our original proposition 
that "Julius Caesar" is the first of Shakespeare's extant 
tragedies in which there is clear evidence of a consciousness 
of the crisis-emphasis as a functional point of structure. 

There are two protagonists in "Romeo and Juliet" and 
two crises, as we have seen, but they are not like the two 
crises in "Julius Caesar." Romeo comes upon his crisis by 
accident and wishes to avoid it. His deed, not long prepared 
and debated over, is a quick stroke of friendship and duty 
for Mercutio's death. The audience has been prepared for 
some such stroke, but Romeo has not. It is only in a very 
limited sense an expression of character; it is rather the 
issuing of Italian tribal animosity into a deed made neces- 
sary by antecedent circumstances and present accidents over 
which Romeo had little control. But Brutus's is an expres- 
sion of character. He strikes at tyranny! Poor foolish 
philosopher, he finds to his dismay that tyranny does not 
after all dwell in the one weak body of Caesar, whom he 
really loved, but in the many-headed crowd that, led by 
Mark Antony, revolts against him. The rise to this effective 
scene, besides the ordinary mechanical preparation for the 



132 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

events, is therefore necessarily character revelation ; in fact, 
is also character evolution. 

The only plays before Shakespeare in behalf of which one 
might challenge the statement about a lack of steady rise to 
a definite crisis would probably be Marlowe's "Jew of 
Malta" or "Edward II." But the "Jew of Malta," despite 
its reputation for good technic, is episodic. Each episode is 
well prepared and executed, but the question in this relation 
is, Which one is the more important ? Which is the definite 
single crisis? Is it the one where Barabas gets his money 
by the aid of Abigail? Is it where Ithamore deserts him? 
Is it where he is thrown over the wall as dead and comes 
to life again? Or is it where he attempts to lead the Turks 
to his fatal bridge over the cauldron? "Edward 11" not 
only presents the two catastrophes of Edward and Mortimer 
at the end of the action, but has two successive plays of the 
favorites within. Which is the important crisis — the one 
where the king gives up Gaveston, the one where he gets him 
back, the one where the nobles kill Gaveston, the one where 
they demand Spencer, or the one where Edward flees? 
Faustus we know indulges in a dreary display of his power, 
in no sense an adequate rise to the beautiful eflfect of calling 
up Helen of Troy. "Tamburlaine" we need not mention. 
The nearest scene to a crisis there is where Zenocrate dies 
and Tamburlaine finds himself for the first time powerless. 
But this is in no real sense a crisis and a reaction ; for 
Tamburlaine has not brought Zenocrate to this place, nor 
have Tamburlaine's enemies. A nearer approach to a return 
action is his failure with his son, whom he feels impelled 
to stab for cowardice. "The Battle of Alcazar" gives us 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 133 

Stukely's rise only in retrospect, and presents, instead, the 
murders of Mooly Mahamet the Moor. 

But these bare possibilities need only be mentioned to show 
how far away they are in technic and beauty from what we 
have reached in the great central scenes of "J^^i^s Caesar." 
"The Misfortunes of Arthur" comes nearer to having a 
contest like that in "Julius Caesar," but the "Misfortunes 
of Arthur" would represent the second half of the play — 
the punishment of the conspiracy, the revolt of the deed 
upon the traitor's head. Perhaps this likeness is the touch- 
stone of explanation. Shakespeare was drawing nearer to 
classical conventions. When he seemed farthest away, in 
the sense that he had two plays in one, he was really nearer. 
He needed only acknowledge the fact and let them fall apart ; 
then heighten a little the character of Caesar, who would 
make the antagonist in the first half, and develop a little 
the character of Antony, who would make the protagonist in 
the second half; then, reaching into the future, get the 
"Antony and Cleopatra" tragedy, compress it, and set it up 
beside the other two. There would be Shakespeare's trilogy ! 
And it would be better than any Senecan trilogy, and no 
worse than many readers have secretly considered the Greek 
trilogies ! But who would exchange it for the next four 
"isolated" plays— "Hamlet," "Othello," "King Lear," and 
"Macbeth"? 

Yet howsoever much we turn away from Seneca and 
howsoever much we like to join the popular critics and be- 
wail his influence, we must, if we are honest students, ac- 
knowledge the beneficial contribution from classical drama 
that he handed over to English tragedy. We are glad that 



134 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

he did not dominate English tragedy and that men like Mar- 
lowe and Shakespeare were virile enough to maintain them- 
selves a good while independent of him — until English 
conventions had time to establish themselves ; but it is never- 
theless to be admitted that some restraint of technic was 
desirable in compositions like "Tamburlaine," "The Battle of 
Alcazar," "Alfonsus of Aragon," and even "Richard III." 
In "Edward 11" and "Richard III" it is noticeable that 
some of the murders are enacted behind the scenes, a fact 
that bespeaks a growing idea of real climax. In "Romeo and 
Juliet" we have imagined Shakespeare as studying Senecan 
structure, and with unerring genius retaining or selecting 
or adopting the best things, and quickening, them with Eliza- 
bethan spirit and technic. In "Julius Caesar" we find him 
trying out some of these ideas, the retributive motive and 
the verbal debate. Twice we have the verbal debate — once 
the more Senecan one between Brutus and Cassius ; once the 
more Elizabethan one, the stirring orations. We see the 
speeches of the contesting opponents, such as we had in the 
"Richard III" catastrophe, grown here in the "Julius Caesar" 
into real functional political orations. The ghost, too, has 
been stepping farther toward a controlling place in the 
action. In the next tragedy, at any rate, we find Shakespeare 
dealing with a full Senecan theme. 



Chapter VII 

The Crisis, the Climax, and the Arrest of the 
Catastrophe 

If we are correct in allowing Shakespeare as much intelli- 
gence concerning matters of structure as the most ordinary 
critic among us (that is, the ability to see a mistake after it 
has happened, and to recognize an excellence after it has 
been evolved), we shall also be correct, then, in imagining 
him dissatisfied with the fact that the play of "Julius Caesar" 
breaks in two, but pleased with the fact that he had struck 
off an excellent piece of technic in the gradual rise to the 
crisis, and had reached a striking dramatic effect in the crisis- 
emphasis and the tragic turn. To an acute and practical 
dramatist, who was interested in structure as well as in 
philosophy and story, and wished in his next production to 
avoid the technical mistake in "Ju^^^s Caesar," what mate- 
rial already at hand would appear better than the old "Ham- 
let" story, or play ? There were there the unpleasant family 
relations, to be sure, and the usually unpleasant ghost; but 
there was also the advantageous revenge motive to bind 
the play together and there was the hesitating philosophical 
protagonist for a possible skilful rise and a delay of the 
revenge stroke. 

It might be argued that all the beauties and subtleties of 
the "Hamlet" action come by chance, and that Shakespeare 

135 



136 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

did not know what he was doing. But surely such a conten- 
tion would belittle any dramatist who could write a play 
like "Hamlet," and particularly would do Shakespeare gross 
injustice. It seems evident that he knew what he was doing 
and chose his material advisedly, not only because of the 
popularity that the subject had at that time, but also because 
of the possibilities of structure that he had now come to see 
in the material. If Shakespeare as an actor took a stage 
part in "The Spanish Tragedy," as is possible, he would 
hardly be indifferent to the central advantages of the revenge 
motive, and he might well have pondered between cues on 
the dramatic faults and virtues of old Hieronimo. To say 
nothing of the Ur-Hamlet, in the light of the known popu- 
larity of Kyd's play and the quotations from it in con- 
temporary drama, as well as its ownership by the Lord 
Strange's men, one cannot think of Shakespeare as "stum- 
bling" upon the hesitator protagonist or the play-within-the- 
play device. But even without this contemporary testimony 
one could not think of Shakespeare as coming untrained into 
possession of the excellences of structure of the "Hamlet" 
action. It is logically the next step in advance after "Julius 
Caesar." 

We cannot go into the question of the authorship of the 
original "Hamlet" nor of how much of the structure of 
Shakespeare's play was there represented. One would be- 
lieve with Furnival that to Shakespeare is due the honor of 
the hesitator motive — not the inception of it, as Furnival 
seems to imply, however (for surely the suggestion is found 
in "The Spanish Tragedy"), but the working of the idea out 
structurally. If our discoveries so far have been real dis- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 137 

coveries (namely, the progress of Shakespeare's attention 
to the larger points of structure in tragedy), surely the 
"Hamlet" crisis is the next step, and if that had been taken 
before by someone else it seems strange that Shakespeare 
should have arrived so slowly at a consciousness of its ad- 
vantage. However, as was said, we are not in the contro- 
versy of Quarto One, Quarto Two, and the Ur-Hamlet; 
but rather have we the object of seeing the advance toward 
ideal structure represented in the finished plays of Shake- 
speare. 

The advance of "Hamlet" on "Julius Caesar" lies in the 
management of the crisis. In "Hamlet" it is kept wholly 
mental, the crisis-deed is delayed, and the avenger and the 
victim die together. This fact is a decided change from the 
narrative source. The author of the drama seems to be 
seeking climax ; in other words, seeking to place fulfilment 
of expectation nearer the end of the action. The fascination 
of the Hamlet tragedy as a piece of structure is just this 
delay of the revenge stroke. That Shakespeare makes the 
delay marvelously a matter of character is his triumph over 
his predecessors and is his improvement on what he had 
achieved in the Brutus-Antony action. We say that that 
action may be described as the rising of a protagonist to a 
planned material stroke that arouses an antagonist to an 
opposition on which the protagonist wrecks himself. But 
such an action is disunion. In "Hamlet" the material stroke 
is delayed, and in its stead, at the place where it should be, 
is inserted a mental stroke, which has a peculiar efifect: 
it performs for the structure of the play the same function 
that the material blow would have performed; that is, it 



138 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

marks the crisis and starts the reaction. But it does more: 
it intensifies that reaction six-fold, while continuing the 
primary expectation to the end of the tragedy. That is, it 
causes the death not only of the king, finally but of Hamlet 
himself and four others first — Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, 
and the Queen. In other words, the action of the tragedy 
of "Hamlet" has a crisis, a crisis-emphasis, and a crisis- 
catastrophe. In all, a sort of climax. This climactic effect 
is reached by keeping the crisis mental. 

Nobody could deny the Senecan influence hovering around 
the "Hamlet" play, even if the ghost were not present and 
the author had not started at the Senecan starting-point after 
the murder. Indeed, Seneca is mentioned by way of an 
innuendo, in Act II, Scene 2, 419, in Polonius's comical 
recommendation of the players, who can play anything. 
"Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light," he adds, 
after his delectable bit of introduction to a doctor's thesis on 
"The Plays of Claudius's Age." (Polonius could have done 
the classification thoroughly, it is evident, if he had cared 
to go on.) In view of Polonius's garrulous wisdom we may 
be justified in according to Shakespeare a good deal of con- 
scious intelligence in matters of structure. In the French 
"Hystoire" and the Saxo Grammaticus story, that lie back 
of the "Hamlet" play, Hamlet "sweeps to his revenge" imme- 
diately on conviction of the king's guilt. He kills the king, 
burns the palace, and makes an oration to the Danes to 
explain his actions, as we have already said.^ This course 

1 In contrast with Gollancz's contention that perhaps Shake- 
speare got hints for Brutus's speech to the Romans from Hamlet's 
speech to the Danes, there is a curious record in North's "Plutarch" ; 
namely, that Brutus speaks to the players he is sending to Rome to 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 139 

of events would have served for a so-called typical Eliza- 
bethan action. But in Shakespeare's tragedy the crisis-deed, 
the killing of the king., is withheld until the end of the play, 
like a Senecan catastrophe, and gives room for much philo- 
sophical talk, not heavy, but weighty. Here then is a 
Senecan play that in the best sense out-Senecas Seneca. 

Whether Shakespeare found this play of "Hamlet" all 
worked up to its niceties by an obscure predecessor whom 
history has left in the dark like a ghost in the cellarage 
unexercised, or whether Shakespeare created the whole 
action originally from Belleforest, Saxo, Seneca, "The Span- 
ish Tragedy," and other popular material and devices of his 
day, makes little difference to the problem of the structure 
of the tragedy as it stands. The evidence remains that it 
was printed in Shakespeare's lifetime with his name on the 
title page, and the final version represents his judgment. 
What the play contains is there because he wanted it there. 
How much better managed the scenes and motive are than 
in "The Spanish Tragedy" is immediately patent. There 
we have the revenge in kind, a life for a life as here; the 
feigned madness (Hieronimo) as here (Hamlet) ; the real 
madness (Isabella) as here (Ophelia) ; the hesitation of the 
avenger to secure proof (Hieronimo mistrusts Belimperia's 
letter as Hamlet the Ghost's word) ; the play-within-the-play 

be employed in his games. So anxious was he that everything 
should be done correctly, that "he went himself as far as Byzantium 
(he was in exile) to speak to some players of comedies and musi- 
cians that were there. And he wrote unto his friends for one 
Canutius, an excellent player that, whatsoever they did, they should 
entreat him to play in these plays." If Hamlet gave Brutus his 
speech, Brutus might well have suggested Hamlet's instructions to 
the players. 



140 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to catch the guilty — but we need not rehearse the events ! 
Readers know how much alike they are in enumeration, 
but how exceedingly different in development and effect. 
Hieronimo is more mad and less spiritual than Hamlet, and 
it is evident that the author of "The Spanish Tragedy" 
merely stumbled upon the hesitation idea. After Hieronimo 
makes up his mind he moves forward with business-like 
despatch. He advances steadily to the play-scene. He 
really needed only to be confirmed in his suspicions; and 
when Belimperia tells him the details of the murder he 
hurries onward with his revenge. The hesitation motive is 
no part of his final tragedy. The fact that the old marshal 
uses the play to compass his ends is characteristic of the 
palace major-domo, the presenter of masks, not the hesitator. 
Shakespeare makes the hesitation and the idea of the mock 
play clearly matters of character. Hamlet never can make 
up his mind. He uses the play as a psychical blow. He 
intends to follow it with the physical, but he does not. He 
kills the king only after the king has killed him — only after 
he realizes that he must act "now or never." 

Shakespeare saw that it would not do to put the physical 
blow early; for after it is struck the "Hamlet" drama is 
done. And it is Hamlet that we are interested in. But, on 
the other hand, there is the great advantage of the face-to- 
face meeting of the strugglers at the middle of the action. 
This is a Greek convention ; it is a Senecan convention ; it 
had come to be Shakespeare's opportunity for some of his 
finest work. It seemed like an indispensable point of struc- 
ture; why forego it? The play-within-the-play offered the 
essentials without the disadvantage of retiring either of the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 141 

contestants. If Hamlet really meets the king and accuses 
him point-blank, Hamlet must strike the blow or forfeit all 
respect of an Elizabethan audience. The play-within offered 
the solution of the problem. The crisis, to be a crisis at all, 
must contain the recognition by the king that Hamlet knows 
of the crime, and the recognition by Hamlet that the king 
knows that Hamlet knows. Such a recognition occurs at 
the end of the mock play. Moreover, all men like to see the 
reaction of the deed upon the doer. If Hamlet is to bait 
the king, Hamlet must expect reaction, and the audience 
wants to watch the struggle. It has a right to the conclusion. 
Despite the objection of critics to the incongruity of the 
double-action in popular Elizabethan plays, it seems to me 
that the Elizabethans were correct in their dramatic sense 
for completeness — their wanting to see the doer done, to 
judge the reciprocal fitness of events. That is what an audi- 
ence applauds most in comedy; that is what affords the 
alleviating satisfaction in tragedy. Shakespeare has proved 
himself right for three hundred years. What Shakespeare's 
people wanted was more than a Senecan ghost's play. But 
how beautiful Shakespeare made the ghost! "Alas, poor 
ghost!" (I suppose that was the first time a ghost had ever 
been pitied.) Yet Seneca was too "heavy." The audience 
naturally wanted something done before the end of the 
play. With the device of the mock play appeared a chance, 
then, to the dramatist to have something done, to start a 
reaction, and yet not cut the interest in two by bringing in a 
new set of characters after the crisis. Even the part of 
Fortinbras in the catastrophe is prepared for very early. 
Accordingly, the play-within-the-play not only served 



142 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Hamlet's purpose of a psychological test of the king's mind 
and the ghost's honesty, but it served the dramatist's pur- 
pose of a definite point toward which to direct the rising 
action ; in other words, it offered a crisis, and a crisis-em- 
phasis with a tragic incident that would set the action 
definitely toward the catastrophe — Hamlet's catastrophe. As 
Goethe in "Wilhelm Meister" has said of this play, "The 
hero has no plan ; but the piece is full of plan." 

The crisis-emphasis is especially good. It is the closet 
scene of Hamlet and his mother. It is closely connected 
with the rising action and with the crisis. Helped out by 
the doings of the Ghost, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, 
Guildenstern, and the players, Hamlet the hesitator reached 
the quasi-deed of inserting some dozen or sixteen lines into 
an old tragedy to serve as a trap to catch the conscience of 
the king. It caught the conscience of the king, but it also 
caught Hamlet. Hamlet did not rush up at the end of the 
play-scene and kill the king as he might have done ; but he 
said immediately afterwards that he was ready to do it. 
However, when he came accidentally upon the king at 
prayers, he put up his sword. With the words, "Up, sword," 
the crisis ends, and the emphasis of it begins. 

We have seen that in a certain sense the crisis-emphasis 
in the "Medea" is a prototype of the crisis-emphasis in 
Shakespeare. Hamlet, like Medea when she had finished her 
interview with Creon, possessed all the power necessary for 
revenge, but must withhold his hand, he said, until he had 
tested his mother. Medea must see Jason. This is in both 
cases a philosophical and structural excuse. Hamlet finds 
the mother as cowardly and shallow as Medea finds Jason ; 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 143 

but effects with her, because of his love and for the sake 
of his further scheme, as Medea effected with Jason, a par- 
tial reconciliation. Quarto One has a full reconciliation and 
a partnership struck up between the avenger and his aunt- 
mother ; but Shakespeare thought better of the matter and 
realized that the full justification of the catastrophe could 
come only the other way. Hence he changed to the second 
quarto reading. 

In the conference, Hamlet recalls first conditions (an 
excellent function of the crisis-emphasis point) ; intensi- 
fies the mouse-trap scene by asserting the king's guilt (the 
raison d'etre of such a point of structure as this) ; directs 
the action downward by impulsively killing. Polonius (the 
tragic turn) ; anticipates the subsecjuent course of events 
when he says : "I must to England, you know that?" (a con- 
nective device) ; and emphatically prophesies the catastrophe, 
when he says he took Polonius for his better, and that he 
would trust his school-fellows as he would adders (an ele- 
ment that revives our confidence in the plot of the play and 
our belief in its final solution). It may be noted — perhaps as 
a coincidence — that the crisis is followed and the catastrophe- 
emphasis preceded in both the "Medea"^ and the "Hamlet" 
by a soliloquy or monologue wherein the author of revenge, 
while gloating over his opportunity, measures his spirit and 
sets a limit to his impetuosity. Undramatic as the conven- 
tion of the Senecan soliloquy is, we would hardly forego 

1 The nurse is present (a Senecan disregard of the accessory char- 
acters), but it is perfectly evident from what the nurse says earlier 
that Medea is talking to herself, and it is evident from Medea's 
own speech that she is talking to herself: "Si quaeris odio, misera, 
quern statuas modum," etc. 



144 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

any of Hamlet's talks to himself. Shakespeare justifies 
the device to our souls if not to our patience. It was left 
to Ibsen, in this modern more hurried and "artistic" age 
to do away with the undramatic private thinking in public. 
The improvement is a great gain to theater-goers but a loss 
to literature. 

It seems hardly necessary to review the action of "Ham- 
let" for itself; but we might, by a quick reference to a play 
so thoroughly known, make a convenient allusive summary 
of the points of structure that we have so far seen the Eliza- 
bethans conscious of, and in addition thus get our bearings 
for what points remain — remain either because they have 
not yet at the time of "Hamlet" been developed, or because 
we as critics were compelled by the necessity of progress 
and clearness of thought on larger matters to forego them 
a while. We review, then, not in the time order of the 
development but in the dramatic order of use in this play. 

The "Hamlet" action opens, as the "Julius Caesar" and 
as the "Romeo and Juliet" open, with a keynote scene, 
which raises expectation high enough to admit of a long 
retrospective narrative, in which the state of affairs at Elsi- 
nore is explained and Hamlet's melancholy revealed. Scene 
3 is given over to a little group of personages of somewhat 
independent interest: Polonius, Laertes and Ophelia. And 
Scenes 4 and 5 introduce the exciting motive definitely : the 
ghost speaks the word "Revenge," and in a frenzy Hamlet 
assumes the duty and declares that he will remember nothing 
else. The introduction is complete at the end of Scene 5, 
and the rise of the action begins at that place where we 
feel that Hamlet has his problem and hesitates to meet it. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 145 

The ghost has come ; Hamlet has pledged himself, has pre- 
pared his friends by swearing them to silence, and proposes 
himself as ready to act, but immediately complains of the 
times and of his problem. 

Two months later, at the beginning of the second act, we 
find him with nothing done; so the rise towards the crisis 
proceeds through two stages: the love-mad theory and the 
play-scheme (Act II, Scenes i and 2). A difiference be- 
tween "Hamlet" and "The Spanish Tragedy" is their differ- 
ence in the use of the play-within. Kyd compasses the 
catastrophe with it; Shakespeare, the crisis. This change 
alone would indicate that Shakespeare thought carefully 
about the crisis, knowing "The Spanish Tragedy" so well as 
he knew it. After the crisis comes the crisis-emphasis with 
the tragic-incident that turns the action towards a catas- 
trophe for Hamlet as well as for the king. The enlivening 
of the fall of this drama is accomplished by two devices 
extraordinarily well employed; an appeal to the pathetic 
in the Ophelia episode and to the grotesque in the grave dig- 
gers' scene (Act IV, Scene 2; Act V, Scene i). (This 
matter of devices and that of auxiliary characters and the 
exposition we have yet to take up.) The banishment of 
Hamlet, his reappearance in Denmark, and the duel are the 
three steps on toward the catastrophe, which presents the 
death of the Queen, Laertes, Hamlet, and, most important 
of all — the delayed revenge-stroke — the death of the guilty 
king at the hands of the hero. But before the catastrophe 
falls, the author inserts the incident of the final suspense, 
or the arrest of the catastrophe, as I like better to call it. 

There is fair proof in the various editions of this play 



146 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

that Shakespeare appreciated the incident of the final sus- 
pense, though it is a nice point of tectonics, and a doubter 
might readily argue that it comes by chance and only from 
the influence of the story-source. Not so. Shakespeare 
definitely elaborated it, and made it more intense, as we 
see by the change from the First Quarto. 

By the arrest of the catastrophe, or the incident of the 
final suspense, in this tragedy, we mean the fact that after 
the spectator has been thoroughly convinced that Hamlet 
must go down before the King's and Laertes's plans to 
poison him, there is a holding up of that conviction for a 
few seconds. It comes about thus: Hamlet begins to win 
the duel and the poisoned rapier does not touch him; but 
the audience remembers the poison for the cup. "That will 
catch him if the rapier does not!" And just as expected! 
The King stops the play when it is all on Hamlet's side 
and calls for the drink. The audience knows that one of 
these stoups of wine is to be poisoned ; for with an elabo- 
rate speech of compliment to Hamlet, the King has said that 
he is going to drop something into the wine of one cup as a 
great gift to Hamlet, which Hamlet shall get when he drinks 
for refreshment after the victory. These are the words the 
king used (in the 1604 quarto) : 

Set me the stoups of wine upon the table. 

If Hamlet give the first or second hit. 

Or quit in answer of the third exchange, 

Let all the battlements their ordnance fire ; 

The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath; 

And in the cup an Unice shall he throw. 

Richer than that which foure successive Kinges 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 147 

In Denmark's Crown have worne. Give me the cup; 

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, 

The trumpet to the Cannoniere without, 

The Cannons to the heavens, the heaven to the earth, 

Now the King drinks to Hamlet, come, beginne. 

And you the Judges beare a wary eye. 

[Trumpets the while.] 

Accordingly, the king stops the fencing now and calls for 
the wine ; for he fears that Hamlet is not going to call for 
it. The King says : 

"Stay ; give me drinke. Hamlet, this pearle is thine ; 
Here's to thy health ; give him the cup." 

But Hamlet says — and in his reply is the arrest of the 
catastrophe — 

"I'll play this bout first; set it by a while. 
Come." 

This is an effective point of structure. I have seen the 
drama acted a number of times, but I have never seen the 
audience fail to clap at these words. The surprise and 
the relief are intense. Shakespeare meant that they should 
be. No one who has examined the two quartos can hold a 
doubt about the matter of Shakespeare's studied providence 
here. He deliberately lengthened and strengthened the 
preparation for the surprise. He inserted in the second 
quarto all that we have quoted about the stoups of wine and 
the union (or the "unice," as it is spelled in the old print), 
and all the king's getting ready of the poison before our eyes 
under the pretense of the orient pearl of great value that he 



148 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

is dropping into the cup for Hamlet. There is no mention 
in Quarto One of the cups. All we know of the poison is 
the talk between Laertes and the King in a previous scene, 
the talk that we also have in the second quarto with more 
elaboration and with the difference that the King suggests 
both ways of poisoning. In this scene of the duel, however, 
in the first draft of the play as we have it in Quarto One, 
there is only the fencing, and then, — 

King. — Here Hamlet the king doth drinke a health to thee. 
Queene. — Here Hamlet, take my napkin, wipe thy face. 

King. — Give me the wine. 
Hamlet. — Set it by, Fie have another bowt first, 

rie drinke anone. 
Queene. — Here Hamlet, thy mother drinkes to thee. 
(Shee drinkes.) 
King. — Do not drinke Gertred: O 'tis the poysned cup! 

Shakespeare's expansion by heightening the surprise and 
the great relief of Hamlet's refusal make the catastrophe, 
when it comes, keener but withal more acceptable. We want 
to see Hamlet die doing something, not carried off stark 
and a victim. It is an echo of this arrest of the catastrophe 
that Hamlet and Laertes in the struggle exchange rapiers ; 
but Hamlet is already wounded. This exchange is only a 
device to end Laertes also and by his own treachery. The 
multiple deaths come to us softened by Hamlet's piece of 
good luck — or prescience, shall we call it? Through this 
earlier surprising relief of the tension of our sensibilities 
we are ready for the end of the action when it comes. 

If the elaboration of Quarto Two at this point in the play 
were occasioned by the fact that this drama was presented 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 149 

at the entertainment given to the king and his Danish bride, 
the argument that Shakespeare realized that the arrest of the 
catastrophe is an effective point of structure, is not over- 
thrown but is rather confirmed ; for what more natural than 
that he should select a place in the action for his particular 
Danish embellishments where they would be prominent 
themselves and serve to enhance the climactic effect of the 
piece as a whole? Indeed, this seeking a good place for 
additions might in itself have created the realization of the 
value of the arrest of the catastrophe. 

This point of structure is taken up here in the chapter on 
"Hamlet," because the evidence that Shakespeare was con- 
scious of it by this time and used it deliberately is very 
strong. We find something like the arrest of the catastro- 
phe in the "Richard III" action, where the announcement 
comes to Richard that Buckingham's army is dispersed by 
the flood and he himself has wandered away alone. But the 
presence of the sudden change in the expected evil may 
result there (Act IV, Scene 4, Lines 5-10) wholly from the 
chronicle, or the use there may be due to Shakespeare's 
interest in his protagonist's moods. Moreover, the place in 
the action is a little early for what I mean by the arrest 
of the catastrophe. The tension hardly justifies the insertion 
of relief at a place more than a whole act before the fall of 
the catastrophe. Anxiety is just beginning in earnest; 
Richard is yet to send Buckingham to the block. The 
facile and interesting touch of having Richard strike the 
messenger and then "cure" the blow with the present of a 
purse is characteristic of a tyrant, and amuses rather than 
relieves — especially where there is scarcely any feeling to 



150 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

relieve. We have not seen Richmond. This incident, then, 
of the third messenger could be interpreted as a sketch of 
personality and as a connecting incident ; for it reveals that 
Buckingham is helpless — news that prepares us for the next 
messenger but one who announces that Buckingham is taken, 
and for the following scene (Act V, Scene i) that pre- 
sents Buckingham on the way to execution conducted by 
Richard's sheriff. Then, too, the incident is one of a num- 
ber of "Enter-messengers," and may be but a varied part 
to help make up the whole of a bustling court scene on the 
eve of a war. 

Freytag mentions the next messenger's report, that Rich- 
mond has sailed for Brittany, as the force of the final sus- 
pense. It is a suspense ; but it is hardly emphasized enough 
to be clearly a functional point in the play. Moreover, I am 
not sure that Shakespeare was conscious of the advantages 
beyond those that wc have noticed for the Buckingham 
episode. However, Freytag may be right. The incidents 
are certainly the kind of material that could be used for 
such points. I have held over the discussion of the arrest 
of the catastrophe, however, on purpose, to the place in 
Shakespeare's development ("Hamlet," Q. 2), where evi- 
dence is strong enough to make us sure that the dramatist 
and not the original narrative only was responsible. Frey- 
tag might better have said, perhaps, that we have there in 
"Richard HI" an incident that could have been used appro- 
priately later in the action as a force of the final suspense. 
But we see that it is far from the end — four hundred and 
fifty-four lines away, with six other scenes following. In 
"Hamlet" what I have described as the arrest of the catas- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 151 

trophe occurs only one hundred and twenty lines from the 
end; and in "Othello" the same point occurs one hundred 
and thirty-one lines from the end. 

I do not agree with Freytag, either, in his certainty of 
the use of the device in "Romeo and Juliet." Freytag calls 
the going of the Friar to the tomb the arrest of the catas- 
trophe. It may be; but the action is not a surprise. It 
is in direct line with the story of the play and with what has 
gone before dramatically. This last fact must be true, of 
course, of any arrest of the catastrophe; namely, that it 
be not unduly abrupt or discordant with what precedes: it 
must come as a surprise yet come naturally. But what I 
wish to say here is that since the action of Friar Laurence 
is expected by us if Romeo fails, inasmuch as the friar is 
Romeo's confidant, we are not surprised to see him start on 
his way, however glad we may be to have him go. The 
next scene, rather, comes nearer to being what I mean. 
Paris's arrival is a surprise, and, against our previous con- 
viction, we really hope that he will interfere with Romeo 
to the effect of delaying him from his purpose of suicide 
until Juliet awakes. But Romeo kills Paris and the turn 
downward is made more sharp. However, I am not sure 
that Shakespeare was not here merely indulging in the gen- 
eral Elizabethan convention of killing off all the principals 
on both sides. What I understand by the final arrest of the 
catastrophe as a point of structure as Shakespeare uses it 
is this: it is an incident (in the root sense of the word as a 
"cutting into" or "across" the falling action), inserted near 
the end of the play to give a brief, unexpected but welcomed 
respite, serving for a momentary relief, but finally futile to 
hold up the catastrophe, which falls thereafter with aug- 



152 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

merited force. There is no doubt about Shakespeare's use 
of this effective artifice in his finest dramas. After the 
1604-Quarto of "Hamlet," the arrest of the catastrophe is 
plain as a point of structure in tragedy. 

We have, then, in "Hamlet" as an advance on "Julius 
Caesar" the conquering of the crisis — the making of it men- 
tal and a true continuer of the action since it does not com- 
plete the rise but prolongs it, by presenting instead of the 
material blow something far more characteristic of the 
hero under the circumstances than the material blow would 
have been. We have also an excellent example of the 
arrest of the catastrophe, a point of structure evidently 
thought over and worked out with care. These changes in 
structure help to make the action more climactic. 

But "Hamlet," though the dramatist's hope was doubtless 
that it would not, does drag to a considerable extent in the 
fourth act. The return of the king upon Hamlet is so 
patent that, though Hamlet has still his work to do, the 
spectator almost feels that it is done, and that he is watch- 
ing the king's play. Shakespeare's structure problem after 
the second quarto of "Hamlet," then, was to maintain the 
tragic struggle but avoid a change of dominance. In 
"Hamlet" the revenge motive had become practically double, 
though it at first promised a single construction line. With 
the hesitator motive joining the revenge motive, the crisis 
became mental but thereby the play became extended, both 
on account of the delay of the revenge-stroke and the oppor- 
tunity for philosophizing.. 

Shakespeare's use of the Senecan retrospective narrative 
here is not much happier than its prototype. Hamlet's re- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 153 

counting of his adventures on being shipped to England, 
while it attains a sort of unity, is still somewhat similar 
to Theseus's report of the nether regions while Hercules is 
murdering Lycus; for, though we are interested to know 
about the journey in both cases, we hardly feel patient 
enough in the midst of impending tragic events to listen 
to a mere recital. Shakespeare's changing of the Queen's 
part occasioned his putting, this retrospective narrative into 
Hamlet's mouth rather than Horatio's as before. Shake- 
speare inserts accordingly, also earlier in the piece, the 
direct letter of Hamlet to the King. This serves as a 
second after-echo of the crisis. In the way of frightening 
Claudius, Hamlet writes: "Tomorrow shall I beg leave to 
see your kingly eyes." 

As we noticed earlier, Shakespeare appeals to episode in 
addition to retrospective narrative to help him out in this 
fourth act. He was not altogether free, I imagine, to do 
what he pleased with the source. Perhaps the story was 
too well known to be changed greatly ; maybe the old play 
was fairly well fixed in public consciousness, or even 
in the repertoire of Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's 
chief additions in the second quarto may have been, as some 
one has asserted, for the most part trenchant philosophy. 
Yet it is no small matter structurally to have worked out 
the incident of the arrest-of-the-catastrophe and to have set 
forth definitely as an architectonic ideal a mental crisis for 
the middle of a tragedy. 



Chapter VIII 
Unity, the Exciting-Force, and the Exposition 

Shakespeare seemed surely in 1604 well equipped as a 
tragic dramatist. He had concepts of a catastrophe, a 
protagonist and antagonist at struggle, a keynote scene, a 
rise to a well-defined mental crisis, a crisis-emphasis includ- 
ing a tragic incident, the arrest of the catastrophe, and, 
over all and with all, as sovereign, an inimitable power of 
character-revelation. Yet there was at least one attain- 
ment he lacked and was conscious of needing, to wit: struc- 
tural unity, or, as he thought of it, probably, command over 
the interim between the crisis-emphasis group of scenes 
and the catastrophe group, the fourth act of our modern 
texts. It would hardly be fair to Shakespeare's intelligence, 
we remind ourselves again, to imagine that he did not feel 
that his earlier tragedies were somewhat epic in form and 
his later ones double. Despite his masterful use of episode, 
his fourth acts in "TuHus Caesar" and "Hamlet" are com- 
parative failures. 

What did he do that resulted in strengthening this weak 
place? He reconsidered his structural motive. He short- 
ened one-half of his "typical" action and very much length- 
ened the other. He chose a story that allowed him to 
arrange a Senecan (or Greek) pair of strugglers, Othello 
and Desdemona; and a Senecan (or Greek) pair of de- 

154 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 155 

baters; one, the holder of the title-role, pushed to his doom; 
the other, the causer of the action, representing malignant 
fate and personal meanness (Othello and lago). I have 
recorded in a previous chapter that I think that Shake- 
speare became interested in the Senecan pair of debaters in 
his study of Brutus and Cassius, but that he could not stop 
then to develop all the dramatic possibilities since his crisis 
was set before him and his path prepared by history. In 
"Othello" we have the Cassius-Brutus action free v/ith 
Cassius changed into lago and Brutus into Othello, and 
Caesar, Desdemona. Mark, I do not mean that the char- 
acters are the same. Of course, Desdemona is not Caesar 
in any way but as the victim ; and lago is not Cassius except 
that he works Othello's will up to the murder somewhat as 
Cassius works Brutus's.^ It was perhaps Shakespeare's own 
Brutus who suggested the swift close of the "Othello" 
action : he said that when Caesar was dead, all that one who 
loved Caesar could do was to die with Caesar. Just so 
Othello dies. There is no need of an outside reaction and 
another play. Othello himself brings the tragedy to a close. 
This ending is different from the story source. There 
Othello denies his deed, is apprehended, and banished. 

But the implication was made also in a previous chapter 
that it is the second half of the so-called typical Elizabethan 
action that is Senecan-like. It is, in the sense that that is 
the half which includes the catastrophe. Either half would 
be Senecan if it were only considered as a whole play and 
not a half. The two halves are what is called Elizabethan, 

1 lago practices also on Roderigo and not unfrequently takes 
our ears with a sharp reminiscence of Cassius; for instance, 
" 'Tis in our selves that we are thus or thus." 



156 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

or "Shakespearean," or "Brutus-Antonian," or anything that 
will connote the doubleness. We are to deal most in 
"Othello" not with the Brutus- Antony situation, but with 
the Brutus-Cassius, which ends with the murder and the 
emphasis of it. Emilia bears the part of Antony in this 
action. She brings the world in on the Moor to judge 
his deed. But there is no long "Emilia" play to follow ; 
for the Moor judges himself and there is little need of 
Emilia and the world. If Brutus had slain himself when 
the citizens ran to his house, the action outlines of these 
two dramas would be analogous. Not identical, naturally; 
for the Othello drama with all its general simplicity is more 
complex in particulars and obviously much longer than the 
rising action of the "Julius Caesar." The connotation I 
wish to suggest here is merely that the "Othello" is a rising 
action, and stops at the highest point. Of the Julius Caesar 
play, we called the Mark-Antony speech and the citizen's 
pulling up of the benches the crisis-emphasis. It is also the 
highest point, though it is not the end of the presented 
action. In "Hamlet" we saw the climactic effect of holding 
the crisis-deed for the end of the play. In "Othello" we get 
a real climax. The action is a ladder that does not break 
in two in the middle, and that has no steps leading down on 
the other side. It is a simple, straight ladder that seems 
to run "up" or "down" according to your point of view. 
If you think of Othello as at the height of his prosperity 
and happiness at the beginning of the play, you think of him 
as descending step by step to his doom. If you think of 
him as inactive at the beginning, you think of him as rising 
to the most vehement expression of his passionate nature 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 157 

at the end of the play. If you think of lago as the causer 
of events, you think of him as rising step by step in his 
intellectual control of the Moor to the very top rung of 
success. If you think of him as a human being given over 
to the vices of the intellect, you see him descending in 
the morality of that intellect step by step as he pushes the 
ingenuous creature he is controlling down the ladder from 
noble deeds to base ones. The descent of lago himself, how- 
ever, is really not like that of Othello from light into dark- 
ness, but is from darkness into blackness. At the beginning 
lago is able to set men wrong by ingenious suggestion, but 
before he has finished the action he there begins, he descends 
to the use of insinuation and barefaced lies, the immorality 
of weaklings. At the close of the play he goes forth alive 
but doomed to death. We will think of the action as 
rising. 

I do not wish to be understood as saying that the 
"Othello" is in any sense classical or Senecan except in some 
parts of the skeleton of the action and in the situation of 
the contestants. There is something peculiar here. The 
play is an Italian romantic Elizabethan production. It is 
Elizabethan in the mere fact that the exposition begins far 
forward from the crisis. The author has a retrospective 
story to tell, but he sets it forth in "acting" scenes, at the 
same time revealing the personality of his characters. He 
changes them a great deal from their prototypes in the 
novella. There lago is in love with Desdemona, and 
Cassio's disgrace is consequent upon his own deed unplanned 
by the ensign. 

The rise to the middle scenes is made through two stages : 



158 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

the Cassio-Roderigo quarrel ; and the handkerchief acci- 
dent, in which fate tragically reinforces the schemer. Act 
III opens with two little preparatory scenes: one, Cassio 
seeking word with Desdemona; the other, Othello making 
ready to walk on the ramparts, whence he shall come in 
time to see Cassio leave. With Cassio's leaving begins 
lago's direct work on Othello's mind. And what a scene 
follows ! The keener intellect and baser soul turns the 
weaker intellect and nobler soul upside down and wrong 
side out. Insinuations and echoes raise doubt; specious 
philosophy and cunning suggestion strengthen it; and a 
bold lie, fatally backed by an accident, establishes it, until 
at the end of the struggle the victim says : 

"Look here, lago, 
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven: 
'Tis gone! 

Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell! 
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne 
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy 

fraught. 
For 'tis of aspics' tongues!" 

(Act III, Scene 3, 1. 442) 

From this point on, lago has only to direct the powerful 
creature that he has aroused. His hold on Othello is fixed. 
The Moor goes out to demand the handkerchief, to strike 
the woman, to do the murder. But it is lago who directs 
the action ; it is he who says, "Strangle her in her bed." The 
action is therefore still rising. 

For his third act, Shakespeare got from the source the 
villain's tricks of persuasion — his seeming, to deny what he 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 159 

asserts, and his apparent desire to withhold information that 
he ought to give. Likewise the author got the handker- 
chief incident, and Desdemona's advocacy of Cassio; but 
he changed lago's personality, making him a colder, more 
disinterested, and intellectual villain, Shakespeare changed, 
too, the particulars of the theft, making Desdemona's first 
losing of the handkerchief an accident — a simple yet ex- 
tremely forcible use of fate — a happier use than the novella 
makes when it has Cassio, coming to Desdemona's back 
door to deliver the handkerchief that lago has stolen, run 
plump into Othello and then, through timidity and sudden 
caution, turn and flee in a compromising manner. The 
transference of the fate element from the one to the other 
incident seems the stroke of genius that helps create plot 
unity. However, since in the novella the ensign steals the 
handkerchief while he decoys the victim with his own little 
daughter, Shakespeare's reluctance to touch the episode, 
though it is very dramatic, may result, as some one has sug- 
gested, from an innate reverence for childhood, and not 
mainly from the plan of the action of the drama. It is 
noteworthy, however, that the change detracts from the 
concreteness of lago, makes him less a person by not being 
a father. 

But whatever the explanation, the fact is before us : After 
the beginning of the rise, the action moves forward in a 
straight line to the catastrophe. lago announces his course 
and pursues it to the end without opposition. It is startling 
to notice that he declares his motive to be revenge, though 
nobody believes him, not even Emilia, who echoes his dec- 
laration later in the play ; and he does not believe himself. 



160 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

for he acknowledges that, had he not the pretended motive 
of revenge, he would yet pursue his course. What does this 
declaration signify? Is it anything besides an effective 
stroke in a superb delineation of a villain? 

What does this indefiniteness of motive within lago mean ? 
Can it be the revelation of a new plan of structure on 
the part of the dramatist? Can it mean that lago has no 
motives, but is himself a motive? 

The debate between lago and Othello keeps the middle 
scenes of the play mental and prolonged, and keeps the ac- 
tion constantly rising. We must inquire specifically into 
the technic here. Many critics have asserted its superiority, 
but none that I know of has explained it. Professor George 
P. Baker has gone so far as to say that in this play there 
is a "fourth act perfect for all time" ; but he does not tell 
us how it happens to make the effect ; he does not analyze. 
Perhaps it would be better to say, he does not show us how 
the structure is pre-arranged to make this effect. I wonder 
whether or not a demonstration is possible? 

Some one might say that the sense of unity comes because 
the dramatist does not introduce new important characters 
after the crisis. But will this restraint completely account 
for the effect? The dramatist does not introduce impor- 
tant characters, but he introduces new ones — almost as 
many as in "Hamlet." In "Othello" they are Bianca, 
Gratiano, Lodovico, and "officers." The clown seems new, 
but he has been in before. In "Hamlet" the new characters 
are not important, either. They are the grave-diggers, the 
priests, "gentlemen," Osric, Fortinbras, and Soldiers. For- 
tinbras comes nearest to being, important; but he has been 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 161 

well prepared for, both by mention and by anticipation of 
what he does. He hardly seems new. Yet in "Hamlet" we 
feel the double action. 

Another might say that the sense of unity is present be- 
cause dominance does not change sides; that lago is the 
protagonist and continues so to the end of the play ; whereas 
in "Hamlet" after the crisis Claudius really takes up the 
action and becomes the protagonist. But the answer is, that 
in a very large measure Othello is the chief agent in the 
second half of the "Othello" action. Of course, as I have 
tried to make plain elsewhere, there is not in the same way 
as in "Hamlet" and in "Julius Caesar" a second half of 
the "Othello" tragedy; but, nevertheless, after all is said 
about lago's being, the protagonist, and there being no 
change of actors, we notice that it is Othello's and not 
lago's hands that do the choking, and it is Othello's and 
not lago's dagger that takes the life of the Moor. 

lago unmistakably plays a different part from that of any 
of Shakespeare's previous characters. He is most like 
Richard HI, but even a child can see that lago is a much 
finer study than Richard. lago is a palpable villain, but 
there is something elusive about him. He is more unhuman 
than Richard. Richard is in no small part a devil and in- 
human, but he is also in no small part a man and a person- 
age, lago is more of a thought and a tendency. I oflfer 
this statement as a solution of the dilemma that gives occa- 
sion to two opinions of critics : one maintaining that lago is 
the protagonist; one, that Othello is. They both are! 
Othello is the body and lago is the mind. Brutus and 
Hamlet do their own thinking : but Othello does not do his. 



162 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

lago does it for him. Brutus and Hamlet have each a 
starter from outside, but their thoughts are their own. 
Othello's are never for one moment his own after lago 
insinuates himself into Othello's nature. lago is a visible 
phenomenon of tyrannous hate : he is as light, as agile, but 
as persistent as a thought. In the intense scene where 
Othello completely admits lago, just as a person sometimes 
completely admits a hovering and persistent idea, Othello 
expresses at once his own surrender and lago's nature: 

"Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne 
To tyrannous hate. Swell, bosom, with thy fraught, 
For 'tis of aspics' tongues !" 

lago is not slow to "get within," so to speak. He realizes 
his sovereignty, and also, like a malicious thought, he tries 
to make Othello believe that Othello is master. When 
Othello kneels to register his vow,^ lago kneels in accom- 
paniment, and the two are indissolubly joined. lago says : 

"Do not rise yet. 
Witness, you ever-burning lights above, 
You elements that clip us round about, 
Witness that here lago doth give up 
The execution of his wit, hands, heart. 
To wrong'd Othello's service ! Let him 

command. 
And to obey shall be in me remorse, 
What bloody business ever." 

*A kneeling and vow were not new dramatic business. Ed- 
ward II kneels and vows vengeance on the nobles for Gave- 
ston's death. Tancred kneels and vows to punish Gismunda. 
Tancred's situation is not totally unlike Othello's, but Tancred 
is correct in his suspicions and Othello is not. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 163 

Now, lago has no intention of doing the "bloody business" 
himself. He means to lend only the first of his enumerated 
proffers — his wit! Othello must be the hands and the 
feet. If not the feet, then the other "gull" must be the 
feet. If Othello will not descend so low as to be the feet 
for this pernicious intellect, then Roderigo must run here 
and there to do the mischief. lago is not so much con- 
cerned with getting bloody deeds executed, however, as in 
getting control of the Moor. The next speech takes lago 
a little by surprise, perhaps, but he answers: 

"My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request. 
But let her live." 

That her! Could anything be more like a persistently re- 
curring thought than lago's method of attack? The Puri- 
tan who got the law passed against swearing in plays, if he 
ever once became interested in the action of this tragedy, 
would hardly cavil at Othello's strong language at this 
point, I think. As Othello says elsewhere, he surely would 
gladly have forgot her just now. But it is part of lago's 
plan that Othello shall never forget, and never lack a di- 
recting thought. As a baleful intellect lago is seated sure 
between Othello's shoulders. Othello says naively, 

"Now art thou my lieutenant." 
lago replies promptly, 

"I am your own forever." 

We need hardly discuss, therefore, these two persons as 
the protagonist and the antagonist of the play; but rather 



164 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

as protagonist and inciting motive. After the entrance of 
that motive into Othello's mind the two are one. Desde- 
mona becomes the antagonist, the sufferer, in this drama 
of maliciousness and fate. 

This is the first of Shakespeare's tragedies where the 
inciting motive of the action is indisputably personified in a 
human being. We saw a near approach to the idea in the 
relationship of Brutus and Cassius ; but Cassius was an his- 
torical personage and Brutus is represented as being already 
susceptible to the idea of the tyrant's being killed. Cassius 
had but to persuade Brutus that Brutus was to lead. But 
here, lag.o has not only to suggest method but to be the 
thought that works in the mind of the executor of the 
action. The ghost was the exciting force in Hamlet's play; 
but it was more of a convention than lago is. The ghost's 
presence was efifective as spectacle and served as an oppor- 
tunity for philosophy and poetry, and was somewhat more 
concrete than Hamlet's flitting thought, but it was not inti- 
mately connected as cause with every presented event of 
the play. But lago is: he is the personization (if I may 
coin the word) of the inciting motive. Take your text 
and look carefully through it and you will find that there 
is not a single scene in which he is not the prime mover or 
the malicious participator. He actually appears in every 
scene as our modern texts are divided, every scene except 
two — that of the proclamation, which consists solely of the 
message (13 lines) and that of Desdemona's willow song. 
Of this last he is unmistakably the cause. 

lago was something new in tragedy in 1604. How potent 
he was for structure we see! There can be no mistake 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 165 

about his use in this drama. He holds the parts together 
as effectively as the law of gravitation keeps one of our 
mighty buildings intact. From the bottom to the top he is 
present. And again, like the law of gravitation, he is more 
of a principle than a fact, and more of a man's thought than 
a man. Critics have repeatedly complained that lago is at 
once human and not human. His humanity and his non- 
humanity are at this date Shakespeare's especial achieve- 
ment: lag.o's non-humanity is the underlying structure of 
the piece, while his humanity is Shakespeare's triumph over 
his own technic. 

"Othello" is not the last tragedy in which Shakespeare 
made use of a personated element of structure, although 
lago is his supreme example. We recognize Goneril, 
Regan and Edmund as filial ingratitude active — surely they 
are not altogether human beings. Lady Macbeth is the 
personal inciting-force of Macbeth's actions as the witches 
are the symbolic. But by the time the poet comes to writing 
"Lear," "Macbeth" and "Antony and Cleopatra," he is deeply 
engrossed with other matters besides pure structure and 
even besides characterization. 

Obviously, one could not mean that lago is no more than 
an abstraction, nor even that he is no more than an 
objectification of a thought. He is very convincing in the 
action. It is only when we reflect on him that we see his 
artificial make-up. That other dramatists saw the advan- 
tage of him is proved by the fact that he reappeared again 
and again in later tragedy. He is on the stage today in 
melodrama. And what makes such otherwise poor plays so 
generally acceptable is the simplicity of the construction 



166 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

line. Nobody has to sit and wonder why a certain scene is 
brought on or what it means. 

Shakespeare won th? unity of "Othello" not by an empha- 
sized protagonist, as Tamburlaine and Richard the Third 
each is, but by an emphasized structural cause for the events. 
The revenge motive is all but lost in "Hamlet" more 
than once, as the ghost reminds the hero. It practically 
is lost with the ghost's last appearance ; for the hesitator 
motive wins at the crisis. The ascent is made easily enough 
with the thought of killing the king, but the descent with 
the thought of killing. Hamlet is not so easy ; for there is no 
material justification for Claudius. The constructive line of 
the scenes, then, must be spliced with another length and a 
slight knot — the Laertes revenge motive. It is of great 
advantage structurally, though, that Claudius tells us what 
he means Laertes to do. We are more engaged than we 
otherwise should be with the events. The catastrophe is 
well managed. But the scenes in the fourth act come more 
by chance, and, beautiful as are those presenting Ophelia, 
do not quite satisfy dramatically. They leave a sense of 
disjointedness, the epic feeling of "and," "and," not of 
"therefore." 

At only three places in the succession of scenes in 
"Othello" do we lack the feeling of "thereforeness" imme- 
diately, the feeling that lago has caused the action; these 
three places are (i) the landing at Cyprus, (2) the herald's 
proclamation of thirteen lines of Othello's permission to the 
garrison to enjoy his wedding celebration, (3) the tiny con- 
necting scene of six lines where Othello goes to walk on 
the ramparts. A word about these exceptions. The first 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 167 

one is evidently momentous. But since Iag.o has just told 
us that he intends to make the Moor jealous and to "have 
Michael Cassio on the hip," v^e are wide-awake to every 
movement of Cassio, Desdemona, Othello, or lago. Before 
the scene is finished, we see, directed by lago's announce- 
ment, the "little web with which he will ensnare as great a 
fly as Cassio." From there on every scene represented 
(except the two connecting ones I have mentioned) is not 
only interpreted by lago, but caused by him — even every 
incident but the two that are of fate and chance : the drop- 
ping of the handkerchief and the appearance at the right 
time of Bianca. Of these the spectator is sure nobody can 
make more diabolical use than lago. lago snatches the 
handkerchief from Emilia as his own crisis-deed. But 
structurally, though it is important, it is only a step in the 
rising action. This surely includes the scene which follows, 
the interview as a result of which lago becomes firmly 
seated in Othello's mind as its directing force. 

Now it is pertinent to ask, what is this scene structurally ? 
What is its nature and function ? It might technically be called 
"the entrance-of-the-exciting-force," that point in the struc- 
ture where it is evident that the protagonist has his problem 
clearly before him and is wrought up to direct coming 
events. Granted that lago is the inciting cause and Othello 
the protagonist, then this middle scene of the play becomes 
truly a mental crisis for Othello. But though it is a critical 
test of Othello, it is in no sense a turning point of the 
action; though it is one of the middle scenes of the play, 
it is not the end of the rise and the beginning of the reac- 
tion. The murder of Desdemona is that. The mental crisis 



168 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

here in the middle of the play is not a turning point of the 
structure. Shakespeare was seeking to avoid that ill result, 
and he brought out strongjy in consequence this excellent 
aid to effective action, namely, a definite marking of the 
entrance of the exciting force. 

This excellence is one thing that is lacking in the "Julius 
Caesar" drama. The point where Brutus makes up his mind 
is not shown. There are the hints of Cassius and the 
ambiguous replies of Brutus, but we do not witness the men- 
tal struggle. That is hidden behind the scenes. "What 
you would work me to I have some aim," says Brutus. But 
his next announcement is, "It must be by his death," show- 
ing that Brutus has already made up his mind to help in 
the assassination. What he gives us in the soliloquy is his 
reasons for this decision. We have missed the tragic strug- 
gle. Portia narrates it in retrospect when the consequences 
are already in operation — "yesternight at supper," etc. In 
"Othello" the struggle is presented directly. 

This struggle is a full psychic crisis such as was not 
attained in "Hamlet." Hamlet's play-scene is a substitution 
for the crisis-deed, and is a full structural crisis for the 
action of the piece ; but it is only partly a crisis of mind for 
Hamlet the protagonist, since Hamlet has already accepted 
his duty before the play-scene. It is more of a psychic crisis 
for the antagonist. The mock play is a functional crisis in 
the structure, since although a substitution for the expected 
material deed, it helps form a turning point in the action. 
Othello's vow is not a substitution for any expected ma- 
terial deed, but is really a crisis of mind for Othello. In- 
stead of being a turning point in the course of the terrific 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 169 

events, it is rather the definite beginning of those events. 
Everything previous has been a rise to this scene, the com- 
ing into Othello's mind of the thought. Everything from 
now on is the working out of that thought into a terrible 
deed, is a continued rise. There is to be no exchange of 
interests: there is here in this scene a consolidation of 
them — lago and Othello from now on work together to 
bring about the subsequent events. 

The handkerchief scene between Othello and Desdemona 
is the reinforcing emphasis of the scene of the entrance of 
the exciting thought. It follows immediately and is a veri- 
table repetition and confirmation of the harrowing mental 
crisis just past. This emphasis scene contains the mot de 
situation, which is truly tragic. "The handkerchief! the 
handkerchief ! the handkerchief !" We have seen the accident 
of the losing of it; we have seen lago snatch it from his 
wife's hand ; we have heard him lie most boldly about it to 
the Moor; we have a clear recollection of the Moor's last 
speech : 

"I will withdraw 

To furnish me with some swift means of death 

For the fair devil." 

A second before he entered, we saw the gentle lady not a 
little disturbed because she could not find the handkerchief. 
And now she is much frightened with the reiteration and 
the passionate narrative of her lord concerning its charms. 
She is grieved, she is startled, she loves her husband, and 
does not want him to be vexed. He has made her appre- 
hensive. Consequently, she asserts what she is not sure 
is the truth, but what she hopes is the truth ! 



170 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"I say it is not lost," she falters. This speech is the 
tragic incident for Desdemona. The giving of the tragic 
incident to the antagonist is a Senecan convention. With it, 
Desdemona becomes part agent of her catastrophe. She 
seemingjy incriminates herself by her further advocation of 
Cassio. If she had been less persistent in her pleading, 
or less stubborn in her silence, all might have been well. 
She could have called Emilia in and questioned her again, 
and the three together might have arrived at the truth about 
the machinations. With her worldly and suspicious wit, 
Emilia doubtless would have seen through the Moor's state 
of mind and have realized the great importance of the hand- 
kerchief. With her love to Desdemona as strong as it 
proved to be, Emilia might have confessed as she con- 
fessed later. But Shakespeare is right again. This is a 
play in which trifles light as air may be made important. 
When we think of lago's consummate skill and Othello's 
intenseness, we realize that the present scene is more nat- 
ural and at the same time more tragic than a rational one 
would be, though the catastrophe seems to result from an 
accident and a fib. It does not so result fundamentally, we 
have seen. Everything results from lago. Shakespeare 
touches the tragic element there is in stubbornness and 
equivocation with just the right emphasis here. In the next 
drama a larger treatment makes somewhat the same situa- 
tion painfully unconvincing. 

But in "Othello" things are dramatically correct if you 
admit the personified exciting-force. Events must go just 
so with a starter and interpreter always at hand. lago 
acts on the course of the drama precisely like a precon- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 171 

ceived notion in a man's affairs. There is no possibility 
of an understanding between Othello and Desdemona so 
long as lago is about. He comes upon the interview just 
closed with the same cutting insistence as an unwelcome 
thought : "There is no other way," he says, as he pushes 
Cassio into Desdemona's presence. That Cassio should do 
with the handkerchief just what best concerns lago's pur- 
pose seems no stranger in this play than in life, where 
fateful coincidences once in a while occur. The happening 
is over quickly, and what the dramatist means to do with 
it is running full tilt before we have time to question. We 
know that if lago does not win one way he will another. 
It is the winning that we are anxious about, not the method. 
He rises steadily, we say, to the top rung of success. 
Othello can not free himself for a minute from this clinging 
obsession, this incorporate, diabolical jealousy and malicious- 
ness. Othello can regain his own personality only after 
carrying into effect lago's wish. 

The murder of Desdemona is what would have been the 
crisis-deed in a typical Elizabethan pre-Hamlet tragedy. It 
is easy to see what Shakespeare's practice with the hesi- 
tator motive taught him, and how much more truly a climax 
the play of "Othello" is than the play of "Hamlet." 

In the story, Othello does lago's bidding and then denies 
the deed. Shakespeare and his Elizabethan audience knew 
better how to end a tragedy. We dare to align ourselves 
with them against the critics and say, it is more dramatically 
entertaining, more wholesome, to see the reaction than to 
be left to guess it. The people who ride in the subway to 
the playhouse and sit in the gallery at the performance may 



172 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

well complain to some of our modern theorists whose 
dramas lead nowhere, "Came we for this from depths of 
underground?" Shakespeare knew his audience, we have 
said, and he knew the long established favorite scene. He 
gave it. There is no jog, no breaking of the play in two. 
The machinations of lago are a long structural rise to a 
climax made up of the death of Desdemona and a quick 
reaction including, the death of Othello. The destruction 
of the Moor is lago's reason for being in this play. The 
whole unified action is the working of his nature out into 
deeds in the lives of others. And his nature is that of a 
malicious thought. The end is inevitable dramatically, what- 
ever it might be in the story. Emilia is just true enough, 
intense enough, and brief enough in her life, poor girl, to 
serve for the occasion of the reaction. She is not the cause 
of Othello's death. lago is the cause. Othello himself 
is the agent. O the pity of it, lag.o ! the pity of it ! For he 
was great of heart. 

So far as conquering the effect of doubleness depends on 
the proportion of the number of lines in the first to the 
number of lines in the second part of a typical Shakespearean 
action, "Hamlet" is an advance on "Julius Caesar," and 
"Othello" may be said to be a complete success. Develop- 
ment of the inciting-motive very much lengthened the rise, 
and in "Othello" practically made the whole play a rise. 
But there is in this matter of the development of the first 
half of the action a more primal reason for the effect of 
unity than either strength or length of the rise; namely, 
excellent introduction. 

Now, the first part of the rise of the "Othello" action 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 173 

consists in lago's confidences with Othello and his gradually 
getting control of Othello's thoughts. The introduction to 
that action must consist, then, of a characterization of lago 
and also of retrospective narrative enough to make the 
situation clear. Such is exactly what we get in the first act. 
And it was not in the source of the play. It is Shake- 
speare's work. One can hardly imagine a dramatist writing 
this first act who had not clearly in mind what he meant 
lago to do and to be. 

Shakespeare made up the whole introduction. He could 
easily enough, if he had not been engrossed with the prob- 
lems of lago, have given his attention, as he did in "Romeo 
and Juliet" to writing out and prefixing the courtship of 
the lovers. But his expansion beyond the story took the 
form of an exposition of lago's nature ; and, as I have said 
earlier, it is noteworthy that Shakespeare's additions and 
omissions tended to detract from the concreteness and hu- 
manity of lago, but to increase his incisive intellectual na- 
ture and directive force. lago is clearly brought out in the 
introduction as inimical to everybody and as the power 
that shall control the coming action. He is both confidant 
and motive. "If I were the Moor, I would not be lago," he 
confesses to Roderigo; and "I am not what I am," he tells 
the audience. That "Knavery's plain face is never seen till 
used" we realize fully only after we have watched lago 
direct the tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. And 
how terrific the relationship of confidant can be we realize 
only after Shakespeare has remade the Senecan convention. 

We know that Shakespeare studied Senecan matters again 
in the motiving of the "Hamlet" action. Here in "Othello" 



174 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

he is interested in the Brutus-Cassius situation from the 
point of view of the mutual relation of the confidants. lago, 
we see, is presented as the confidant of the Moor and Emilia 
as the confidant of Desdemona. It is obvious that we have 
here in this new and virile form a relationship of the old 
plays made really dramatic. As we think about it we 
realize that the Senecan confidants are to their principals 
only as wishes and purposes set upon legs. They go hither 
and thither to do a bidding or they stand still to listen to a 
monologue. By them the dramatist reveals the thoughts 
and the struggles of his heroes with fate. 

In the first line of "Othello" we hear that lago "knew 
of this" ; in other words, is Othello's confidant. lago denies 
that he knew, but his very position as informer to Roderigo 
reveals the fact, and we realize later that he is Othello's con- 
fidant. In Scene 2, indeed, he is directly presented as such. 
We find out likewise through lago's first conversation that 
he is curiously bad — bad intellectually. Now, the Senecan 
confidants are always good, in the matter of faithfulness at 
least. But what if one should not be faithful, and instead 
of standing and listening to all the communications about 
motives and about the action to which the principal is mak- 
ing up his mind, should turn around and furnish the mo- 
tives — should, as it were, be the evil motive that pushes the 
superior on to works of death? Would not that relationship 
be tragic and afford a very simple and plain construction 
line? The ghost was Hamlet's evil fate, in a way, forcing 
him out of his own proper personality into that of a schemer 
and an assassin. But the personality of Hamlet overtopped 
that of the ghost and the structure broke down. lago, how- 



THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 175 

ever, never leaves his sphere and the action never breaks 
down. His opportunity to be always on the scene comes 
from his position as confidant ; and the fact that he is more 
or less incorporeal likewise comes from his position as con- 
fidant. How much more virile and dramatic and tragic 
lago is than the old Senecan weaklings is measured by how 
much more virile and dramatic he is as a thought. He is 
much better than Friar Laurence, though Friar Laurence 
is more active and Elizabethan than previous Senecan crea- 
tures. Emilia, too, is — an Elizabethan nurse, I was going 
to say — is a Senecan convention made new and intense, 
though she is not so new and strange and fascinating as 
lago. What Shakespeare could do with Senecan conven- 
tions is no more clearly shown in the tragedy of "Hamlet" 
than in the tragedy of "Othello." lago, the Moor's ancient, 
his confidant, his evil thought, the motive-force of his ac- 
tions, his tragedy! But one asks, Was not lago in the 
novella? Yes and no. An ensign was there who was in 
love with "Disdemona." The Ensign, despairing of corrupt- 
ing the virtuous lady, abused her to the Moor and lied about 
a Captain, whom she had favored because the Moor liked 
him. But in the story it is the Moor who really seeks lago 
after the first suspicion and gives him occasion for his 
fabrications. Then, also, the Moor is less noble in the story 
and much freer from the company of the Ensign, and Emilia 
does not at all live with "Disdemona." She lives at home, 
where "Disdemona" visits her occasionally. The Senecan 
relationship of the confidants was arranged by Shakespeare. 
It was carefully prepared in the first act. 
: We have said that the exposition is Elizabethan in the 



176 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

activity of the scenes. It is Senecan, obviously, in having 
the content of those scenes retrospective chiefly, rather 
than forward-moving. There is an attempt to set a dra- 
matic time and keep near it. Before the development 
revealed in "Othello," Shakespeare would likely enough 
have disregarded the time element altogether, or practically 
altogether; but here, it is obvious, he is attempting some- 
what of a unity of time as well as aiming directly at a unity 
of action. But Shakespeare is no less the popular play- 
wright because he is aiming, at niceties of structure. There 
is a deal of lively stage business thrown in to make the long 
speeches acceptable; for there are long speeches, we must 
admit. The play opens with a night-scene, again, as "Ham- 
let" opens. The pitch here, of course, is sensibly higher, 
and the movement and tone different. Enter Brabantio in 
his night-gown is more like Enter Hieronimo in his shirt. 
Kyd's scene Shakespeare had smiled at in his "Go by, 
Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm thee" ; but he used 
it here very appropriately to enliven the slow process of 
imparting information about the past. Brabantio recalls 
Old Capulet in his personality and Shylock in his situation, 
at least, so far as the loss of a daughter. It may be only 
lago's words, however, that recall Shylock to us: 

"Awake! What, ho! Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves I 
Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags !" 

So in the meeting of the Senate, the running in and out 
of the messengers enlivens the scene. The spectator must 
be got ready for the Cyprus situation and must hear in the 
meantime Othello's long account of the courtship. lago 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 177 

comes in also with Desdemona and, after matters are set- 
tled, receives the sacred charge of bringing her to her lord 
at Cyprus. In the commission he is called "Honest lago" — 
a fine bit of irony well understood after his previous 
speeches. At the end of the act he makes announcement of 
his future course — "to abuse Othello's ear." With the 
landing at Cyprus begins the steady unbroken rise to the 
end of the play. 

The exposition has served as an exposition to bring out 
in characteristic speech and action all the important person- 
ages. Even the subplot is well under way at the opening 
of Act II — if we may speak of Roderigo's part as a sub- 
plot. In a drama where such a character is used so nicely 
in the action later he should be called an auxiliary, per- 
haps, rather than part of a subplot. lago is a pernicious 
intellect that means to do nothing himself but only like a 
thought to set others to doing, needs some such lumpish clay 
to inhabit also and set in motion for variety of plot. Othello 
and Roderigo are both gulls to lago's intellect, but they are 
very different. The chief use of Roderigo is to show forth 
lago's nature before it enters into control of Othello's mind. 
It must seem to be very honest or it can not gain admit- 
tance there, yet the audience must know its diabolical possi- 
bilities beforehand or there will be no tragic suspense. How 
admirably Shakespeare has succeeded with his exposition is 
shown by the unmistakable rise of the succeeding action. 

This point of structure is discussed at this place and not 
earlier because I can not be sure that before the writing of 
"Othello" any dramatist felt the introduction, or exposition, 
as a peculiar problem. We know that the early popular 



178 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

dramatists just "began" with the story. Their idea was to 
set up a narrative in presentable scenes, and only gradually 
did they arrive at a consciousness of the structural function 
of the various parts of the action. "The Spanish Tragedy," 
we have seen, introduces one play, and gives us finally an- 
other. "Tamburlaine" runs along in epic structure. The 
beginning is good in the sense that the audience immediately 
feels the power of the protagonist, but there is no introduc- 
tion to a whole complete dramatic action, and the speeches 
are long and oratorical. Tamburlaine's second speech is 
twelve lines long, his third eighteen, and his fifth twenty- 
four. The opening situation in "Faustus" is striking, but 
the speech is a soliloquy of sixty-two lines. The hero's third 
speech is forty lines. This kind of beginning is not our ideal 
today. Barabas opens his tragedy with a speech of forty- 
eight lines, and follows it soon after with one of thirty- 
eight. "Edward the Second" has the best beginning in so 
far as exposition of conditions pertains, but the whole play 
is hardly to be Gaveston's play. He dies before the middle. 
Yet he delivers character-speeches of himself and Edward 
of forty-eight lines (divided into two speeches) within the 
first three or four minutes of the action. "Edward the 
Second" is a marked improvement over its predecessors in 
the matter of the movement of the dialogue. There are 
here and there brisk nervous speeches that are not far in 
quality from some of Shakespeare's middle work; but the 
first speech, on the contrary, at least in regard to length, is 
not indicative of a new order. 

Richard III naively steps out and proclaims his identity 
like Beelzebub or the tardy clown in the old mummers' play ; 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 179 

"Here comes I, old Beelzebub," or "Here comes I who's 
never been yet," and his speech like theirs is a recitation. 

The "Richard 11" tragedy opens with the quarrel and 
challenge of Bolingbroke and Mowbray. This is in a way 
a prefiguring of the coming action and somewhat of a 
character-sketch of Bolingbroke, but we are not further 
interested in Mowbray and the speeches are long and tire- 
some. 

In "King John" the character of Faulconbridge is 
brought out pronouncedly in the first scene and the dis- 
cussion, which is the means, was no doubt interesting to 
Elizabethan ears, but it falls on ours as long and very 
unpleasant. I am aware that critics think Faulconbridge 
the best part of the play and his intensification particularly 
Shakespeare's addition to the original. And assuredly there 
is a verve and activity about him, a bluntness, honesty, and 
loyalty that is refreshing when one thinks of the character- 
less characters of the old plays ; nevertheless, the intricate 
punning, the long speeches, and the unpleasant subject prove 
our present criticism just concerning the introduction. 

"Romeo and Juliet" begins most spiritedly with the 
making of faces, biting of thumbs, clashing of swords, 
clanging of bucklers, and shouts of "Down with the Capu- 
lets!" "Down with the Montagues!" But we must, not- 
withstanding, listen patiently to Benvolio's and the fond 
old parent's lengthy and intricate, though poetic, descrip- 
tions of Romeo. In justice, however, it must be admitted 
that together the three speeches make only thirty-five lines, 
and this fact is a remarkable advance on the past. The 
first division, what we are given to calling the keynote scene 



180 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

of the play, before tlie Prince enters, is composed of eighty 
Hnes and almost as many speeches. We might name 
Shakespeare a new artist for this fact alone, as I have 
remarked elsewhere ; but we have imagined his writing all 
the first two and a half acts of "Romeo and Juliet" as in- 
troduction to the last half of his drama, or as a spirited 
remaking, of an ancient English imitation of Seneca. How 
much he thought of the events, other than those of the 
keynote scene, as exposition and not forward-moving story 
we can hardly say. This is a commendatory criticism on 
his success, but it acknowledges how very limited our 
proofs are of Shakespeare's conscious processes. We do 
not know that he meant more there than to present dra- 
matically Brooke's poem condensed. 

But I am reminded that Shakespeare has a fine introduc- 
tion to "Hamlet." Yes; in a way, nothing could be bet- 
ter. But I am not sure that its excellence did not come 
chiefly from a desire to improve the Senecan ghost element 
that was already a conventional beginning. The triumph 
of the ghost was complete in the fact of banishing the unde- 
sirable and the loathsome, and in securing for the most part 
only the dignified and the awe-inspiring qualities of such 
visitants. Still there is not a little amount of old-fashioned 
business left; for instance, the swearing on the sword- 
hilt and the "mole" in the ground. Likewise, there is the 
usual fault of Elizabethan beginnings — long narration. No 
Elizabethan author conquered the exposition through and 
through dramatically ; and certainly Shakespeare did not in 
"Hamlet," but he advanced markedly on his predecessors. 
Shakespeare has marvelous keynote scenes ; yet his succeed- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 181 

ing expositions are, like those of all the dramas of his day, 
more or less weighted with narration. 

The first act of the "Othello" tragedy is of Shakespeare's 
contriving. In the narrative, Disdemona and the Moor have 
long been married and living at Venice before the call to 
Cyprus, and Roderigo is unknown. Moreover, as we have 
said elsewhere, the catastrophe is entirely different. In 
Cinthio's story the Moor (unnamed) is a good deal of a 
coward. He not only slinks from justice finally, but lies 
in bed while the Ensign, in his presence and according to a 
plan between them, beats Disdemona to death with a stock- 
ing filled with sand, and pulls a rafter down on her to prove 
an accident. The Moor in the story is therefore a brute, 
and the Ensign (also unnamed) is a common rufiian. But 
in Shakespeare's exposition lago is unmistakably brought 
out as an intellect and a controlling force, and Othello as a 
high-minded generous character. The exposition does what 
it should do — introduces the characters so that what follows 
is perfectly clear and consonant. We do not expect the 
action of a rufiian nor the shameful subterfuges of a cow- 
ard. We expect tragedy. As we have said, the exposition 
here is the chief subsidiary help to unity. It not only pre- 
sents the main characters in illuminative speech and action, 
but gives us a sense of all their past and a keen interest in 
their future. Their future must grow out of their past, we 
feel, but we perceive that it is not to grow smoothly. The 
disturbing presence of lago is unmistakably felt. When 
Brabantio says: 

"Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see : 
She has deceived her father, and may thee," 

we know that Desdemona will not deceive the Moor with 



182 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

any deliberate purpose, but what she may inadvertently do 
or what lago may make of her actions, we can not say. But 
we are ready to watch. And when we get lago's full an- 
nouncement we are keen. We know what he is going to 
do, but not what Othello and Desdemona will do. The 
state of mind of the audience is exactly right. All the 
main happenings are outlined already beforehand so that 
the spectator may watch not the course of material events 
but the course of mental events. 

Shakespeare did not escape here, either, entirely the faults 
of his predecessors. He manages to introduce his retro- 
spective narrative and his character descriptions logically ; 
but they are long; and, for this reason, despite its sprightly 
stage business, the exposition drags somewhat. It was left 
for the nineteenth century wholly to conquer the exposition. 
Ibsen has his retrospective narrative so insinuated into the 
conversation of his characters that listeners never suspect 
they are being informed. In this excellence "Ghosts" can 
never be surpassed. But its superiority results from the 
ideals of realism paramount in our age. When we find 
fault with Shakespeare accordingly, we find fault with his 
age. How much he surpassed his predecessors and his 
former self is made plain by the advance of "Othello" over 
all antecedent drama in the possession of unity. 



Chapter IX 
Unity, the Return Action, and the Underplot 

With the choice of "Hamlet" Shakespeare began to select 
for his tragedies material that contained in itself some help 
toward unity. The Amleth history even in Saxo begins 
after the good king's death. The Othello narrative begins 
with almost the bare statement that the marriage had been 
long consummated. We have realized, however, that the 
dramatist could have enlarged either way ; but that he chose 
rather to elucidate and concentrate. What story he told, 
he told in retrospect. Moreover, he advisedly ends his 
tragedy each time with death — with Hamlet's death, con- 
trary to the story; with Othello's death, contrary to the 
story ; with Cordelia's and Lear's, contrary to both the ante- 
cedent story and play. It is evident that Shakespeare was 
seeking unity and finality. What shall we say, then, of the 
very complex action of "Lear"? 

The Goneril-Regan-and-Edmund part, together with the 
subplot of Edgar and Gloucester, is Shakespeare's inven- 
tion. What could he have meant by all these additions? 
As Professor Thorndike seems to suggest,^ perhaps Shake- 
speare chose to involve himself in this intricate structure. 
It is obvious that he proves himself master. He has given 
us the greatest simplicity in "Othello," the greatest com- 
plexity in "Lear." 

1 "Tragedy," p. i68. 

183 



184 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

It often happens that when an artist has attained a technic, 
he lets it show through his work. Shakespeare cannot hold 
himself free from his fault here, but no one can say that he 
has not triumphed. Given the problem he set for himself, 
who could have done better? "Lear" is a combination of 
Senecan and Elizabethan structures so tremendous and 
penetratingly tragic that the ordinary person cannot bear 
it; that is, one who has not been brought up to take his 
emotions mixed and strong.. Few readers have been able to 
endure the underplot, but it is but the acme of Elizabethan 
popular tragedy. The plucking out of eyes had been added 
as part of the catastrophe of "Tancred and Gismunda" in 
the edition of 1591. Shakespeare uses the event in "Lear" 
as crisis for the evil schemers, those who did not at first 
intend more than coldness and neglect toward an impatient 
provoking old king; but wickedness grows on itself, and 
these unlovely creatures, Goneril and Regan, attain almost 
to the frightful visages of the secret, black, and midnight 
hags that we meet in the next tragedy. That Lear's evil 
daughters should fall to division and death is the reaction 
we demand. We could not accept the play without it. 
Shakespeare shows that he knew the human mind thoroughly 
even in his most elaborate appeal to it. As spectators we 
moderns do not like the underplot. It is present, philo- 
sophically and structurally serviceable; but before the com- 
pletion of it we put our hands over our eyes and our fingers 
in our ears and turn our backs on the messenger who con- 
firms the villainies we have all along suspected. Yet we 
know as critics and psychologists that the overplot would 
not affect us as it does without this proof that actual coarse 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 185 

deeds of hand are only disgusting, not terrific, and are really 
negjigible. The pitiful and awful thing is the breaking of the 
human heart. We watch that with an intensity that notices 
not the means that make it plain. It is remarkable that, 
despite the seeming intricacy of this great tragedy, the final 
effect in one's memory is that of an action baldly simple. 
Let us inquire how this effect is brought about. 

It is brought about by the restricting of the main action 
to Senecan structure. If the "Othello" tragedy makes us 
feel that we are watching a rising action, the coming into 
expression of all the terrible possibilities of a passionate 
nature, surely "Lear" in contrast imparts a powerful sense 
of a falling action, the plunging into extinction of a passion- 
ate nature through a rash deed that gradually transforms 
itself into a futile thought impotent against consequences. 
The impression of the structure is as if Shakespeare had 
advisedly taken, this time, the other half of the "typical" 
Elizabethan play and had devoted his skill to it. The "Lear" 
tragedy is concerned with the last days of "a very foolish 
fond old man, four-score and upwards." Though there is 
much complication, there is really no confusion and no con- 
tradiction. The tragic action moves forward logically and 
regularly. From the moment of the dividing of his king- 
dom Lear falls straight to his doom — rejection and insanity. 
The whole play is but the reaction on him of his own deed. 
If there be any general crisis to the main plot, it occurs in 
the first scene of the first act — an earnest of Senecan form. 
The only difference is that in Shakespeare's play the events 
are briefly acted out, not merely narrated as in Seneca. 
This difference is important to vividness but not to structure. 



186 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

The "Lear" catastrophe begins at Act III, and, partly 
reported and partly enacted, runs through the rest of the 
play. To have Lear awake from his madness and realize 
that he may be mad again is but to intensify the catastrophe. 
The episode where Cordelia attempts to save him is but an 
episode, necessary to the mind tragedy, but unafifecting the 
course of events ; Lear's doom was struck long before and 
quickly follows after. 

The main action of the tragedy, we say, is Senecan, in 
that Lear, despite opposition, goes on to the completion of 
his purpose. He is set on finding out who loves him best — 
as (Edipus to find out who killed Laius. He is warned by 
all coincidents, as was CEdipus, not to pursue the inquiry. 
He is, indeed, not only told that he is rushing to destruction, 
but he knows that he is : he senses his destiny. Impelled by 
the fate of his disposition (Shakespeare's gods), he flings 
himself out of doors, determined to know no kind of filial 
regard but what he has preconceived. His passionate nature 
craves expression toward the thing he loves and from it. 
Baffled, his soul recoils upon itself, and, (Edipus-like, tears 
out its eyes : he yields his wits to his perversity. And this 
is in a large part his tragedy: to know in the beginning 
Cordelia's love, but insisting to parade in it, "wot ye, to 
worst e'en the giver." But, as I said, we must not confuse 
spiritual action with technical. It is a matter of Shake- 
speare's development at this time that he so interwove the 
two in this drama that, though we can readily think them 
apart, we can scarcely tell them off. We agree in this 
technical study that the overplot is Senecan, or "Greek"; 
that Lear goes on to the completion of his purpose, a com- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 187 

pletion that brings catastrophe and includes the death of 
himself, of his tormentors, and of Cordelia. The fact that 
the catastrophe includes the death of all the principals is an 
Elizabethan convention. 

Since the overplot is a simple reaction, a straight down- 
ward fall from activity and a deed, to inactivity and a 
thought, Lear is the chief struggjer, is the protagonist of 
this drama. Anyone who talks otherwise has not followed 
the question through carefully, or has another definition for 
protagonist besides that of the chief struggler, or causer of 
the action. Whoever calls Goneril, Regan, and Edmund the 
protagonist is thinking of activities and not of the action 
of a tragedy. This is Lear's tragedy. He causes it ; others 
suffer with him ; others also act after him and in his fashion 
and in accompaniment with him, but they could not have 
acted exactly thus and with this result had he not acted 
first. He is the first cause — physiologically, spiritually, 
ethically, and dramatically. The three daughters are his 
daughters. Goneril and Regan are as much like him as is 
Cordelia. Moreover, where Cordelia is most exasperating 
and stubborn, she is most like her father. Her response to 
him is characteristic not only of herself but of him — she is 
her father's child, and her response dramatically is caused 
by him. 

Goneril, Regan, and Edmund together are not the pro- 
tagonist, nor is any one of them chief in relation to Lear. 
They work with Lear and in the direction he took are sub- 
ordinate. They work with him somewhat as lago with 
Othello, but not to the effect of converting a thought into a 
deed, but rather to the effect of converting a deed into a 



188 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

thought. Hence the difference in the trend of the two plays. 
In the beginning of his play Lear in act divides his king- 
dom and dethrones himself, but he does not in thought do so. 
He still thinks of himself as king, and, partly and essentially, 
deports himself as if he were. But the tragedy of the situ- 
ation is that the deed finally reacts on him to the effect of 
making him think his situation as well as act it. The com- 
bined thinking and acting result in the cracking of his wits. 
This tragedy is a tragedy of realization. Lear the proud, 
impatient, insistent, arrogant, the unloving, rash, untamed, 
imperious monarch comes to know himself as an "unaccom- 
modated man — no more but a poor, bare, forked animal. 
If Goneril, Regan, and Edmund are not the protagonist, 
and do not inaugurate the action of the tragedy, what are 
they, and what is their function? They are surely not the 
inciting or instigating force of Lear's action in the same 
way as lago is of Othello's. They do not deliberately set 
themselves to work on his mind. Their first action is a reflex 
action, as Goneril's speech at the end of Scene i testifies. 
Even at the crisis-emphasis it is Lear who starts the events : 
he insists on staying out in the storm. His impetuous action 
is a surprise to his tormentors: and in their cruelty to him 
they but actively follow his lead of neglect and cruelty to 
himself. Unfilial, they offer as their excuse : 

" 'Tis best to give him way ; he leads himself 

O sir, to wilful men 
The injuries that they themselves procure 
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors: 
He is attended with a desperate train 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 189 

And what they may incense him to, being apt 
To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear." 

The latter part of this speech is, of course, hypocrisy; but 
the earlier part is exactly the kind of excuse cruel people 
hug. to themselves, and is in its psychology intensely true; 
hence the tragedy. The Fool makes all this relationship very 
plain from the beginning to the end of his part. What an 
interesting modification he is of the convention of a chorus ! 
Goneril, Regan, and Edmund are filial ingratitude active — 
not actuating, however. From the beginning of the tragedy 
Lear is preoccupied with the idea of filial ingratitude; they 
are that idea personified. But they are not the actuating 
cause of Lear's destruction. That cause is his own passion- 
ate pride and caprice. In the pity the dramatist arouses 
in us for this tragic character we must not fail to see that 
it is truly a tragic character, and not a mere sentimental one 
of melodrama. The terrific outline of Lear's disposition 
that Goneril and Regan give is to be observed. They are 
shrewd and cunning analyzers. Their intellects are not at 
fault if their hearts are. 

Gon. — You see how full of changes his age is ; the 
observation we have made of it hath not been little ; he 
always loved our sister most ; and with what poor judg- 
ment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly. 

Reg. — 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but 
slenderly known himself. 

Gon. — The best and soundest of his time hath been but 
rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not 
alone the imperfections of long ingrafted condition, but 
therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and 
choleric years bring with them. (Act. I, sc. i, 291-303.) 



190 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Since Goneril, Regan, and Edmund are neither the pro- 
tagonist of the action nor the inciting motive, are they the 
antagonist ? No more than they are the protagonist ; that is, 
neither singly nor collectively are they in the fundamental 
outline of the action the antagonist of Lear. They are rather 
the antagonists of Cordelia, or she of them. This fact is 
shown not only by the course of the play but by Goneril's 
words at the end of Scene i. That they win physically and 
bring Cordelia to death might be interpreted to mean that 
they are the chief strugglers in relation to her. Indeed, 
they are physically, in so far as the activities of the drama 
go ; they are the ones who actively engage against her. This 
is what they may be considered then ; the emphasized (struc- 
tural) promoters of the activities within the action. In rela- 
tion to Lear they are zealous agents going far beyond his 
initiative. They take more of the sovereignty than he dele- 
gated, and press home to him the import of his own acts by 
carrying them out to the bitter end. What he suggests and 
starts, they execute without mercy or remission, both 
towards him and towards Cordelia. 

Cordelia is surely the antagonist against her father's wil- 
fulness — she and Kent are. There is no mistake about the 
relationship of the parties at the luminous beginning of the 
play. She and Kent openly set themselves against the king's 
action and against those whom he has made to be of his 
party. Throughout the subsequent activities Kent represents 
the opposition. Kent and Cordelia win at last so far as to 
see the king abandon his passion and imprecations and in 
humility acknowledge his mistake. But what they wished 
to do they could not do; namely, save the venerable king 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 191 

from the tragedy of his own disposition. He pulls that 
down upon himself unchecked save for their slight success 
with him by the way of a restorative after his madness. 
This success is scarcely better materially than a failure, since 
he so soon loses what he sought and with it his own mind 
and life. The scene is but the arrest of the catastrophe. 
Cordelia's part is, therefore, much like that of the antag- 
onists in the Senecan drama. They suffer the tyranny of the 
protagonists and go down in the action that the protagonists 
have planned. 

Cordelia's represented opposition after the first act, how- 
ever, is not against her father, but against those who by an 
unnatural assumption of the relationship established by him 
have become his tormentors as well as her enemies. She is 
anxious to secure and save her father. She contends for 
possession of him against her sisters and Edmund; that is, 
she sets herself parallel with him against them, as they had 
set themselves parallel with him against her. She becomes 
the opponent of Lear's representatives as well as of his 
first foolishness. No change has taken place in her relation 
to them, however, except that of active warfare. From the 
beginning she has been tacitly against them. Goneril, Regan, 
Edmund, and Albany are representatives of Lear even at the 
end of the action both by fact and by assertion ; for they are 
"opposites" to all invaders of the British kingdom, his king- 
dom. Moreover, they win in the conflict. There is accord- 
ingly no change in the political relationship of the parties 
from the beginning to the close of the drama. There is no 
permanent change except the change in Lear's mind toward 
himself and his daughters. The structural restraint of the 



192 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

action makes this drama, as I said, a tragedy of realization. 
Lear's change toward Cordelia is made known not in the 
form of a dramatic crisis, but only in the form of an arrest 
of the catastrophe, a subordinate scene. 

The arrest of the catastrophe is repeated in the place 
where the overplot and the underplot come together ; that 
is, where Albany demands Lear and Cordelia, and Edmund 
finally repents and sends for them. This small incident, 
however, is only an after echo of the larger and more beau- 
tiful scene where we hope for Lear's complete restoration. 
Shakespeare's reduction of the turning point of the old 
melodrama to a mere arrest of the catastrophe is a fine dem- 
onstration of his command over his material. The Lear- 
Cordelia tragedy as Shakespeare presents it is a Greek- 
Senecan action with a continued downward fall from the 
beginning. 

Technically Cordelia is the antagonist of the action, and 
technically Goneril, Regan, and Edmund are parallel pro- 
moters of the action along with Lear; but fundamentally 
Lear is not only the real protagonist but also the real antag- 
onist. He is his own worst enemy, and the battle ground 
of the drama is his nature. Philosophically, it looks as if 
Shakespeare were coming at the time of the composition 
of "Lear" to the realization that the most tragic fact in the 
world is that of a disposition divided against itself. He had 
very evidently come at any rate to the conclusion that a 
good return action must be the return of the doer's own 
deed upon the doer's own head by the doer's own hand, 
as it were. If someone else "return" the deed, then the 
story is not done ; for there is yet that person's tragedy to be 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 193 

worked out and the reaction of his deed to be set forth. 
If the antagonist becomes important, he becomes really a 
protagonist of a new play, and the former leader is put on 
the defensive, and the unity of effect is broken. This trans- 
fer of dominance occurs in "Julius Caesar" and in "Hamlet" 
very largely ; but it does not occur in "Othello" or in "Lear" 
— not in "Othello" because of the peculiar condition we have 
analyzed. lago is more of an evil idea than a man, and 
Desdemona is too weak and loving to be an antagonist. 
The representation in "Othello" is of the insinuation of an 
evil idea and the growth of it into an evil deed. The reaction 
of that deed, if not a foregone conclusion with us, is so 
swift and satisfying that we hardly realize that it is a re- 
action, but think it part of the catastrophe. 

But the reaction in "Lear" is a matter of the whole play ; 
that fact brings unity. A change of dominance does not 
occur. That Shakespeare worked especially against such a 
result is shown by the evidence that he modified the accepted 
story and antecedent play, putting, what would rationally be 
a turning point — the meeting with Cordelia — very late, mak- 
ing Cordelia's a losing part throughout. She does not carry 
her father to France (as the story has her do), nor does she 
really stop the falling action of Lear's tragedy (as the old 
play has her do). Her sweetness and love in Shakespeare's 
version only break the fall and make the end less unwel- 
come, make it truly tragic and not merely horrible. The 
forces that Lear sets in motion against Cordelia and him- 
self win. That the people who are the agent of these forces 
destroy themselves also is a matter of the underplot. The 
tragic end of Lear is the direct result of the beginning of 



194 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

his action. Nothing has changed the course of events. He 
has fallen straight from the throne to his death. Had he 
kept the throne, none of the evils presented would have 
occurred. It is noteworthy for a clear understanding of the 
mere structure of the play that Lear's tormentors do not 
kill his body: they break his heart. 

The underplot of this tragedy is parallel with the main 
action, not across it. So far as Goneril and Regan act on 
Lear's initiative, they are part of the main tragedy; so far 
as they act on their own and Edmund's initiative, they are 
part of the underplot. The Goneril-Regan-Edmund love 
story and the Gloucester-Edgar-Edmund struggle have to- 
gether a progress independent of the overtragedy. Their 
course exemplifies what is sometimes called typical Eliza- 
bethan structure; that is, the actors rise from the contem- 
plation of wicked deeds to the execution of them and under- 
go the reaction that brings death ; but it is noteworthy that 
even here Shakespeare does not forget his lesson of "Julius 
Caesar" and "Hamlet." He brings in no new avenger where 
the perpetrators of wickedness are connected with the over- 
plot. Goneril and Regan destroy themselves and each other. 
It is "the judgment of the heavens" (their own dispositions) 
that destroys them, as Albany definitely states. It is only the 
subpart of the subplot that allows a human avenger. The 
enlivening of the Senecan action therefore, we may say, 
is brought about through an Elizabethan addition; but an 
addition not like that of "Romeo and Juliet," where one 
action is prefixed to another, involving a double protagonist ; 
not like that of the "Julius Caesar," where the second half 
is affixed to the first, for the purpose of bringing the offender 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 195 

of the first to death ; not like the hesitator motive of "Ham- 
let," involving, a reaction on a reaction ; not even like the 
vigorous and intellectual transformation within the action 
of the Senecan relationship of the confidant. The Greek 
simplicity of the main theme of the "Lear" tragedy is offered 
in all its simplicity ; but dramatic emphasis is employed to 
throw the simplicity out in bold relief, as it were, on a back- 
ground of non-simplicity. 

Shakespeare, the practical writer of plays, knew his audi- 
ence too well to leave to it a chance appreciation of the great 
theme. He had himself risen only by degrees to a concep- 
tion of what is truly tragic in human life ; but he could not 
wait for his audience to arrive gradually. H he had waited, 
his play would have failed. It was necessary that he bring 
the audience with him perforce. Indeed, it has taken later 
ages some time to appreciate the depths and awfulness of 
the simple "Lear" action. To resign power when one is 
capable of wielding it, when one is capable of being "every 
inch a king" ; to indulge in personal weaknesses and caprice, 
where one could very well carry the burdens of state and 
society, and thus prevent evil ; to ask for the name and addi- 
tions of a king without the responsibilities ; to demand love 
and get hate with abuse in return ; to give hate and abuse 
where love is deserved ; in short, to wreck one's powers on 
one's disposition, and realize the fact — this is tragedy, but 
it is not the kind of tragedy that the mob grasps a concep- 
tion of easily. For the unthinking there is needed heavy 
emphasis, and plays are not written for the closet; at least, 
Shakespeare's plays were not. "Lear" is great tragedy 
and no defense is necessary, even of its Elizabethan em- 



196 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

phasis; but it is desirable that we understand the function 
of the various parts. 

The entrance-of-the-exciting- force became in the "Othello" 
drama a large and beautiful scene, gradually prepared for. 
Because of its elaborateness and the rise to it, it seemingly 
took the earlier place of the crisis-deed, which, instead, 
came far along toward the end of the play. The extended 
introduction necessary to make this scene of the inciting 
force intelligible occasioned the somewhat slow progress of 
the first part of the "Othello" action. There is not this first 
slow progress in "Lear." The introduction prevents. There 
is in one sense no introduction. We are thrust immediately 
into the presence of tragedy. The crisis-deed is the intro- 
duction. The author of "Lear" has therefore omitted all the 
so-called first half of the so-called typical Elizabethan action. 

Since the protagonist has taken the downward course 
from the beginning of the play, and has at the beginning 
performed the crisis-deed, we cannot in the Caesar-Brutus 
sense talk of a crisis in the third act of the "Lear" tragedy. 
The middle of this drama is a crisis-emphasis, therefore, 
simply removed the length of an act from the crisis-deed. 

This crisis-emphasis is an artistic thing, an art product, 
that does not belong, to the original story. The chronicles 
make no mention of Lear's madness. The ballad which 
relates it is subsequent to the drama in time of composition. 
The center of the "Lear" tragedy, so far as is known, is 
wholly Shakespeare's. It is his supreme contribution to 
dramatic literature in connection with the middle of a play, 
as the close of the "Antony and Cleopatra" action is his 
supreme ending. We have agreed that the "Lear" middle 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 197 

scenes are not a crisis in the story sense; that turning oc- 
curred when Lear divided his kingdom. The transformation 
in the third act is psychic and personal. The course of 
events does not change, but only the mind of the protago- 
nist. Though Shakespeare was always of his times, he 
rises here to a conception of tragedy, classical, universal, 
eternal — that of mortals at strife with the gods, man with 
his disposition, where the material outcome matters little, 
but the struggle is the tragedy. This is the future-looking 
fact in the "Lear" drama. We find Shakespeare following 
the idea closely ever afterwards. He more and more neg- 
lects the story, and gives us the soul struggle. 

Though the last incident of the "Lear" action is an Eliza- 
bethan stroke, the material death of the hero, yet Lear dies 
with a knowledge of Cordelia's love and of his own mistake. 
We said that dominance does not change sides at the middle 
of the play, and that Lear continues leader in the real sense ; 
but it is the broken Lear that compels, that "draws love to a 
display of itself." The consequences of his wicked folly 
move on from ruin to ruin without any change of action; 
though there is a partial change of heart in the protagonist. 
Hitherto he has been imperious and selfish, unlovable with 
all his love ; at the end, as he says, he is a slave of the gods, 
"A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man," but — and here 
is his triumph if so pitiful a figure can be said to have any 
triumph — we, like Cordelia, would at last gather him up in 
our arms. 

The middle of this play is a group of the most elaborate 
central scenes in dramatic tragedy, where the parallel under- 



198 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

lying of the subplot throws the main action into vivid relief 
by both contrast and harmony: we see the proudest and 
most impatient of kings brought to the lowest depths of 
ignominy, standing, helpless before the elements ; we see him 
tearing from his mind all old ideas and beginning to realize 
the one tragic thought; we hear the bitter babbling of the 
fool, the mutterings of the pretended mad man, the shrieks 
of the real one, and here and there the word of the friend, 
as if the artist were purposely sounding the sweet tone that 
is to come out in final predominance over the harsh clang 
of the catastrophe. The middle of this play is a Senecan 
middle, in that there is for Lear no reversal of fortune, but 
the first horror is the beginning of the catastrophe. The 
middle of this play is an Elizabethan crisis-emphasis — Eliza- 
bethan in the change of the course of the action of the under- 
plot, and its interweaving with the main story; a crisis- 
emphasis in the review and reiteration of the event that 
caused the tragedy. The whole action is neither Senecan 
nor Elizabethan nor both, but greater, in the revelation of a 
mental turmoil wherein is accomplished the substitution 
of one idea for another to the final quiescence of the tor- 
mented soul. 

Perhaps "Lear" is the beginning of the typical Shake- 
spearean structure, for which all the other dramas have been 
a preparation. Or, perhaps, and I should not be surprised if 
this were the truth, there is no typical structural point of any 
kind in Shakespeare's work, but each play is in some measure 
a modification of the one just preceding and an advance on 
the others. Surely Act III of "Lear" is the most remarkable 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 199 

achievement ever attained in the middle of a tragedy. There 
is unity in complexity. The unity of the whole drama is 
secured by keeping the entire main action a return. 

In "Lear" Shakespeare had come to a conception of trag- 
edy beyond technic, but offered an example that demanded 
in the making all the skill an Elizabethan trained and 
genius-endowed artist could then give. The world will 
never cease to marvel at the impression this action makes in 
its complexity. Critics will never cease to analyze. Classicists 
will never fail to find fault but still to be attracted. Repeated 
readers of the lines will not escape being swept ofif their feet 
now and again and carried into the swirl of enthusiastic 
acclaimers of the superiority of "Lear" to all other dramas, 
in its summary of classical and romantic tragedy. But there 
was in store for Shakespeare in a particular way a further 
development even than "Lear" represents. 



Chapter X 

The Outer and Inner Action, Theatrical Devices and 
Special Scenes 

The presentation of a philosophic truth by means of 
theatrical devices is the eminent structural fact of the 
"Macbeth" drama. From the point of view of the stage 
"Macbeth" is the swiftest and most effective of Shakespeare's 
tragedies and for one unmistakable reason — namely, the 
clarity of its three actions — its narrative action, its psy- 
chological action, and its moral action. 

The theme of the narrative action is an historical legend 
of a usurper who employs assassination, murder, and ex- 
treme tyranny ; the theme of the psychological action is the 
incalculability of entertained evil; the theme of the moral 
action is the gradual self-destruction of a human soul. It 
would sound neat to say that the narrative action proceeds 
by retrospective dialogue and directly presented events; the 
psychological, by asides, monologues, soliloquies, and spec- 
tacle ; the moral, by characterizations and expressed maxims. 
But obviously this statement would not be true if the con- 
notation were that the various actions occupied separate 
scenes which could be set out over against each other dis- 
tinctly all the time. Obviously the three actions of the three 
themes proceed for the most part together in the same situ- 
ations, or practically so. A striking fact about this drama 
is its extreme brevity in comparison with the rest of Shake- 

200 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 201 

speare's plays. The evidence is clear that given the story 
and the psychic and moral ideas some very practical hand 
set about offering them in as concise and brilliant a form as 
possible. There are two places where matters lag a little, 
but the general stage effect is one of stirring dramatic 
business. 

The amalgamation of the outer and the inner action by 
means of theatrical devices is what will legitimately interest 
us in this study ; for the final impression of this play, as 
well as of that of "Othello" and of "Lear," is one of unity, 
despite the truth that critics so tenaciously assert and the 
ordinary reader so quickly observes on first perusal ; namely, 
that the division which our modern texts mark as the fourth 
act is weaker than the others. But the failure in "Mac- 
beth," if we call this weakness a failure, is one not of con- 
ception as that of "Julius Caesar," nor of procedure, as that 
of "Antony and Cleopatra," but of detail, the general fault 
of "Timon of Athens." We will first notice the procedure 
and the conception, and then take up the faulty detail. 

The procedure is largely by devices, we say. There is 
one general device, of which most of the others are special 
manifestations ; namely, that of objectifying psychological 
tendencies. The witches represent the evil thought that 
takes possession of Macbeth's mind; Lady Macbeth repre- 
sents Macbeth's ambition in which the thought lives; the 
ghost of Banquo represents the revolt of Macbeth's own 
mind against itself; and the apparitions shown by the witches 
upon Macbeth's visit to them represent Macbeth's secret 
conviction of future failure and political death. It should 
be borne in mind that by the word represent we do not mean 



202 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

anything strictly allegorical, but that we are speaking of 
dramatic method — objectification. The advantage of such a 
device is great. Here, where it is skillfully used, it gives a 
concreteness of action exceedingly impressive. Spectators 
are forced to the same philosophical attitude as the dramatist. 
They are challenged to watch the progress of evil, and, led 
through a series of stage events, to apprehend a series of 
mind and soul changes. 

The opening is a keynote scene wholly spectacular but of 
much power. The suggestion is far out of proportion to the 
number of lines that create it. Whether Shakespeare wrote 
all the witch parts or not in this tragedy (probably not), 
no one would take away the first eleven lines. Some critics, 
though, might wish them put immediately before Macbeth's 
first speech, with the narrative scene omitted. But in either 
place an effect is sure. Certainly as they stand they make 
the narrative second scene less tiring than it otherwise would 
be ; for it can be got over in the afterglow of the first, though 
a spectator feels a distinct dash to his spirits at Duncan's 
opening words. 

To have the witches come in again after the tamer second 
scene is clearly a connective device and would not be needed 
if the narrative were omitted. Because of the superfluity, 
some critics are inclined to say that the second scene and the 
first part of the third are not Shakespeare's but an interpo- 
lation; the speeches of the witches further along, however, 
upon Macbeth's entrance, are more than a mere device ; they 
are device become drama, and are unquestionably Shake- 
speare's work. The onlooker realizes at once what the 
witches are, and realizes their nature. They are tragic 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 203 

things, repugnant, but strangely fascinating; "fantastical" — 
in Banquo's sense of the word; flitting inhabitants of the 
air; in a way, outside man, but with uncanny potency to 
enter receptive minds. They are the personified exciting 
motive of the play. Before the drama is done and the spec- 
tator has seen the last of these creatures, he realizes the 
treachery of entertained evil as well as its transforming 
power. Macbeth is brought out as a changed man in his 
contrasting second interview with the weird sisters. It is 
the tragic change that evil brings about that the whole 
"Macbeth" drama emphasizes. 

Lady Macbeth is obviously more than a mere mind- 
attitude personified, but she just as obviously is that, and 
performs for the protagonist and the action of the drama 
that function. She is the chief of the witches stepped into 
Macbeth's home; or, rather, if I may speak as the Eliza- 
bethans would very well have understood, in her the trio 
of witches is housed, the evil thought is domesticated. She 
is Macbeth's ambition. She supplies the courage for the 
first deed and leads in the execution of it. After the execu- 
tion she has a fading part. When the throne is obtained — 
when Macbeth's vaulting ambition has o'erleaped itself and 
fallen on the other side into fear — her part is done. Fear 
is alien to Lady Macbeth's nature. She rules only the first 
part of Macbeth's action. What is left for her, after fear 
holds sway, is silence. One might go on to argue that even 
the gradual and quiet dissolution of Lady Macbeth is an 
evidence of what the author meant her part in the action 
to be, that of personified ambition ; for just so ambition 
dies. But such a contention would be more than foolish. 



204 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Shakespeare was not writing, an allegory and did not think 
of his material allegorically, but dramatically. But that is 
just the point here being made: Shakespeare was present- 
ing, in as dramatic and concrete a way as possible, his con- 
ception of tragedy. There is something stirring and dra- 
matically fascinating about the progress of an ambition, 
however criminal it may be, and there is something tragic 
about the failure of an ambition, however unworthy. Lady 
Macbeth is no less a tragic character in this play than is 
Macbeth, though she is a reinforcing and parallel one, not 
the chief. It is noticeable that she has not the prominence 
that lago has in relation to Othello. She is not the personi- 
fied inciting force of the entire action ; the witches are that. 
She holds only a part of the play together. She is a device 
to help make plain the author's philosophy. 

This statement seems to be stretching somewhat the defi- 
nition of device, and we do not mean to maintain the sig- 
nification long; but we want to see clearly how the whole 
play is a devised action that makes evident a philosophical 
truth. The names of the principal personages are historical, 
as we have said, and the general happenings of the action are 
legendary, but the details are chosen^ and the characteriza- 
tions are pointed. A special effect is aimed at. 

There is nothing more psychologically correct than the 
words Shakespeare puts into the mouth of his weary and 
troubled protagonist as a brief reply to the message about 
the death of the queen. She had been his ambition. That 
was dead already — years ago it seemed to him — what could 
the material end signify? 

*From at least two stories in Holinshed's "Chronicle." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 205 

"She would have died hereafter ; 
There would have been a time for such a word." 

What killed Lady Macbeth was that horrible knocking 
at the gate. When the world came back in on the mur- 
derers, the futility of their sacrifice was instantly apparent. 
Macbeth began to fear; Lady Macbeth, to die — inwardly, 
first. The knocking-at-the-gate is an impressive psycholog- 
ical device, come down to Shakespeare as an effective startler 
of the conscience since the days of the old Galilean ritual. 
It is the "Tollite Portas" of the dedication of a church, 
where three blows with a staff were given on the door.^ A 
person concealed within used to slip out qtiasi fugiens, in 
dramatic representation of the expulsion of the spirit of 
evil. Shakespeare employs this momentous knocking three 
times : in "Romeo and Juliet," in "Othello," and here in 
"Macbeth." In "Romeo and Juliet" there is a happy turn; 
for only the nurse comes in on Romeo's concealment. In 
"Othello" the knocking is an extreme relief; it is our first 
hope that the hero will come to his senses and that the victim 
may yet be saved. But in "Macbeth" the effect is terrific. 
It is the knocking at the g^te that killed ambition. No 
visible evil fled at the time, but we see later in the sleep- 
walking scene what must have happened psychically at this 
time. 

The banquet and the sleep-walking scene are Shake- 
speare's original contributions to the Macbeth story. Not 
only is the treatment Shakespeare's own, but so far as critics 
have been able to ascertain, the fact of the presence of these 
details in the course of the story is also Shakespeare's ow^n.' 

» Cf. E. K. Chambers : The Mediesval Stage, Vol. II, p. 4. 
« Wafd, Vol. II, pp. 172.3. 



206 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

If we should carefully examine these scenes, therefore, and 
the matters related to them, we should be likely to find dem- 
onstrated beyond a doubt what was the author's conception 
of the tragedy of the chronicle he selected to present. That 
Shakespeare wanted first of all to write an acceptable stage 
play goes without saying. But why a tragedy? And if a 
tragedy, why add these scenes instead of others? It is ap- 
parent that these are the memorable scenes of the play. They 
bring out the greatest artistic efforts of performers and are 
an illuminative comment on the whole action. 

The banquet is used as the author's favorite point of struc- 
ture, crisis-emphasis. The banquet itself is a fine old de- 
vice. It had been a popular stage setting for a tragic event 
since the days of the mystery cycles. There the alarming 
circling question, "Is it I?'* "Is it I?" had not failed of 
intense dramatic effect. At a banquet Cambises had ar- 
raigned his wife, whom he meant to kill. And now Macbeth 
reveals his soul, and its terrible secret to his "admired" 
guests. Here Shakespeare for the fourth time in his trag- 
edies employs the ghost; but with quite a different effect. 
His appreciation of the tragic possibilities of the device had 
developed. 

The first time, in "Richard III," he brings on a troop of 
ghosts for prolonged stage business ; their connection with 
the plot is slight and their use fantastic. In "Julius Caesar" 
he has the ghost of the "murdered man" confront the as- 
sassin (at least so the stage directions identify the appari- 
tion) at midnight and when he is alone. The treatment is a 
distinct change from the original narrative. Plutarch has 
Brutus see his evil genius, and then on the next day be 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 207 

argued with by Cassius that the apparition was an hallucina- 
tion. Shakespeare, we recall, was at the time of the writing 
of "Julius Caesar" beginning to be interested in Senecan 
ghosts as avengers. That fact may explain why he passed 
over unnoticed a chance for a subtler touch than he gave, 
though he made excellent use of Plutarch's suggestion. He 
used it for enlivening the return action with spectacle, and 
for exquisite character embellishment. Nothing could be 
better in its way than the late character-sketching of Brutus 
in that scene. There Brutus is most lovable, and there occurs 
the charming episode of the harp, and the tired boy, and of 
the book that the absent-minded philosopher has lost in the 
pocket of his gown. That Brutus should be reading on the 
eve of a great battle is characteristic of the man, and that he 
should see a ghost when sitting alone at midnight attests 
as much the "authenticity" of Plutarch's account as the 
treatment of the scene attests Shakespeare's gift of natural- 
ness. The whole effect, however, is not strikingly tragic. 
Whoever put the Senecan ghost into the "Hamlet" play 
imposed it on the story. The use there is more intimately 
structural, but perhaps less psychologically correct through- 
out than the use in "Julius Caesar." Shakespeare's magic 
touch on the ghost character is the noticeable fact of the 
"Hamlet" supernatural element. 

But the "Macbeth" ghost is indisputably a philosophical 
thing — whether visible to the audience or not. Whether the 
apparition is supposed to be only an hallucination of the 
troubled mind or to be simply a ghost indulging in a ghost's 
prerogative to remain unseen save by the person particularly 
affected, makes no difference to our contention here, — which 



208 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

is that the use of the ghost in "Macbeth" is clearly a device 
to bring out a philosophical truth, and, though a theatrical 
artifice, is an integral part of the whole course of the play. 
Indeed, it forms, as we said, the crisis-emphasis. The "Ham- 
let" ghost appears at the crisis-emphasis, but it is there only 
as an incident of a larger scene. It does not have the same 
philosophical connection with the crisis of the drama as the 
ghost has in the "Macbeth" action. The "Hamlet" presence 
is well prepared for and its connection with the action, 
though incidental, is obvious; but it does not produce the 
same tragic effect as its successor in the "Macbeth" crisis- 
emphasis. 

I say successor because the two ghosts are not so unlike 
as their impressions on us would at first lead us to believe. 
They are both apparitions of a murdered man ; they appear 
in the crisis-emphasis only to the protagonist ; and, while the 
"Hamlet" ghost speaks and the "Macbeth" one does not, 
Shakespeare yet takes great pains in the "Hamlet" action 
to show us that no one but the hero heard the speech of the 
ghost, as he takes great pains in both cases to show us that 
nobody saw the ghost but the protagonist concerned. 
Whether or not the "Macbeth" ghost be only an hallucina- 
tion, and one that should or should not be presented bodily 
on the stage, really makes small difference to the final effect 
of the action. 

This statement, though true, seems at first sight some- 
what strange and contradictory. Because this fact has not 
been thoroughly grasped is the reason, I think, that so many 
critics have gone astray on the analysis of the "Macbeth" 
action. It is verv natural to assert that the difference in the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 209 

effect of the "Hamlet" ghost and of the "Macbeth" ghost is 
the difference in sublimation, the "Macbeth" ghost being the 
more spiritual. This argument would hold on only the one 
quality — the silence of the ghost ; for in many earlier Eliza- 
bethan plays — "The Spanish Tragedy," for instance — the 
ghost, while it appears to the audience, does not appear to 
any of the characters, nor does it enter the action of the 
tragedy. Indeed, in "Richard III" the ghosts appear only 
while the protagonist and the antagonist are sleeping, and 
address them only during their dreams. It would seem 
that the aloofness, therefore, would tend to make those 
supernatural beings more spiritual than later ones that 
speak in the action; but we know that such is not the im- 
pression. So, too, the difference in the effect of the "Ham- 
let" ghost and the "Macbeth" ghost is not primarily a dif- 
ference in the apparitions themselves. 

In other words and to be brief, the effect of the ghost- 
scene in "Macbeth" does not depend upon the ghost alone 
but upon the response of the protagonist to the ghost. The 
banquet scene in "Macbeth" is more effective than all other 
ghost scenes, because the philosophy displayed is more 
effective, the revelation is clearer as to what is truly tragic 
in human life. Macbeth's response shows an unmistakable 
downward trend of the protagonist. 

Shakespeare had always conceived of tragedy as a fall- 
but what kind of fall ? A fall from a high office to indignity? 
Yes. ("Richard II.") A loss of one's crown and a fall 
before one's enemy on the battlefield ? Yes. ("Richard III.") 
A fall before malicious fate? Yes. ("Romeo and Juliet.") 
A fall before a wily antagonist and because of the misap- 



210 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

plied best in one's own nature, a self-imposed death finally? 
Yes. ("Julius Caesar.") A fall because of conflict between 
duty and disposition — a duty that brings death to someone 
else and a disposition that brings death to oneself? Yes. 
("Hamlet.") A fall because of a confidant's wicked machi- 
nations on a susceptible and passionate nature? Yes. 
("Othello.") A fall because of a rash deed springing out 
of one's most characteristic weakness and reacting on one 
to the final destruction of both body and mind? Yes. 
("Lear.") A fall because of one's own ambition, a fall 
from natural human kindness to the personality of a tyrant 
and then a fiend, — a character-fall that destroys, body, mind, 
and soul? Surely yes. ("Macbeth.") 

Now, if this is the proper conception of the "Macbeth" 
tragedy, and represents, as I think it does, the most lasting 
impression, then some detailed explanation of the play and 
the impression that sophisticated and unsophisticated per- 
sons alike receive of the structure, is necessary ; for this con^ 
ception that we speak of obviously implies a slant downward 
from the beginning, and seems at variance with the generlal 
academic criticism to the eflfect that the action is in the form 
of a pyramid, as it were, running up to the ghost scene and 
then down to Macbeth's death. 

This confusion of ideas comes about, it seems to me, 
by one's keeping too much to a preconceived notion and not 
separating philosophy from activities and drama from story. 
Or, in other words, not realizing that the dramatic action 
of the Macbeth tragedy is tripartite. 

Now, the direction of the moral action is clearly down. 
Macbeth is a worse man at the end than at the beginning 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 211 

of the play. At the beginning he hesitates because of nat- 
ural human kindness. But later when he comes to slaughter- 
ing innocent babes he is not only catching the nearest way 
but doing so without debate. He is morally dead. Macbeth 
falls from life to death. Though at first his moral life 
is tainted with an evil ambition, it is yet Hfe. But the 
tyrant's treatment of Macduff's wife and child reveals a 
dead soul. The downfall is steady, moreover. The moral 
action is not up and then down, but straight down. Macbeth 
continuously falls in his own estimation and the estimation 
of others from the beginning. This course is marked by his 
two speeches: "I have bought golden opinions from all 
sorts of men, etc." (Act I, Scene 7), and his "I'm sick at 
heart, etc." (Act V, Scene 3). He realized, as no one else 
could, that his life had fallen. He is at the highest point of 
his self-respect in the earlier scenes of the play, at the low- 
est in the later. 

We are not left in doubt about the moral interpretation 
of this tragedy. The dramatist resorts to his most emphatic 
device to enforce understanding — Lady Macbeth in the 
sleep-walking scene. The philosophic intent is here expressed 
in words. It is accordingly plain that Shakespeare was put- 
ting on the stage not only a theatrical story in a theatrical 
manner, but was also attempting to reveal his conception 
of the tragic material. Lady Macbeth is not only herself, 
the wife of the tyrant, but is the symbol of his inmost life, 
his ambition, his soul. Her perturbation shown when she 
is without bodily consciousness is therefore all the more 
appropriate and forceful. Her talking is what Macbeth's 
was earlier — tragic incident. This whole scene (V, 2) may 



212 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

be considered an enlarged tragic incident, removed some 
distance from the crisis-emphasis. The tragic fact for Mac- 
beth at the banquet was his foolish babbling ; the tragic fact 
for him later is the same thing — the utter impossibility of 
secrecy concerning his deeds. The doctor understands the 
situation. 

"Unnatural deeds 
Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds 
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets." 

But he is abashed at the Queen's revelations, and quickly 
asserts that the disease is beyond his practice. In his em- 
barrassment he murmurs, 

"More needs she the divine than the physician. 
God, God forgive us all!" / 

Lady Macbeth is not a weakling, not so much one as her 
more physical self, her husband. She goes to nobody with 
confidences. She asks no comfort. There is something 
frightful in her reserve. The depth of her unconscious sigh 
alone reveals her comprehension of her fall. When we 
first met her she was already on the summit of her aspira- 
tions. She said in her first greetings to her lord, 

"Thy letters have transported me beyond 
This ignorant present, and I feel now 
The future in the instant." 

What remained for her in the course of the play, then, was 
the fall from that summit to the realization of what she there 
unwittingly prophesied. She thought she meant only success 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 213 

and power ; she reveals in the sleep-walking scene that she 
realizes descent and everlasting criminal stain. 

The direction of the psychological action is also down. 
Macbeth has the best command of his mental powers at the 
opening of the play. There he can think clearly if not vigor- 
ously. Although he sees strange things, he can reason about 
them ; and not only about them but about their effect on him 
himself. Yet — and here is where the two actions start out 
together — his reasoning, from the first is tainted with moral 
unsoundness. He is presented as already entertaining ille- 
gitimate thoughts, and unable to reach independent con- 
clusions in a new experience. The contrast is definitely 
shown by means of Banquo's reasoning on the same phe- 
nomena. Banquo's is made conspicuous. The moral strength 
of Banquo was deliberatively created by the dramatist for a 
purpose. The characterization was Shakespeare's addition 
to the legend, and indisputably serves the purpose of setting 
out in sharp relief Macbeth's precarious state of mind. He 
easily confuses issues. The point I wish to emphasize here 
is that already at the beginning of the dramatic action the 
mind tragedy has begun. There is no up and down, but just 
a down to this action. 

Macbeth descends, manifestly, from confusion to more 
confusion in his mental processes. At the end of the action 
he is in a frenzy of doubt and mistaken confidence. The 
ghost scene of the play marks, accordingly, not the height 
of his frenzy (the end of the play marks that) but the be- 
ginning of his frenzy. Where confusion passes into frenzy 
is the middle point in this downward mental course. His 
course mentally is first chosen confusion, then unchecked 



214 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

confusion, then unrestrainable confusion. The appalling 
phenomenon in the ghost scene is not the appearance of the 
ghost but Macbeth's foolish babbling. That reveals all. If 
he could have held his tongue, his visitors would have been 
none the wiser. It is loss of correlation between physical 
and mental action that the ghost scene records. Hereafter 
Macbeth does not only what he wants to do, but what he 
does not want to do. He acts through fear. Not only is 
this scene "the very painting of his fear," but the succeed- 
ing scenes are also. Every new scene marks continued laps- 
ing of judgment. At each important place Macbeth proves 
himself less virile, less of a thinking man than before. His 
talk with the doctor, though very tragic, is very foolish. His 
response to the messenger about the queen's death shows 
the depths of his mental fall. Everything is to him finally 
as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying 
nothing. His immediate last responses to stimuli are but 
the reflex throwing about of arms and legs, as it were. 
There is no directing mind. His willingness to fight is not 
bravery. 

His only hope of safety lay in restrained action, as Mal- 
colm earlier pointed out. Macbeth's unreasoning bravado 
of response to the approaching, soldiers is imbecile reflex 
action. He is not even reasonable enough to kill himself 
as Brutus was. Macbeth thinks about the matter, but he 
reaches the wrong conclusion. At the last he most con- 
spicuously confuses issues. He insanely tries to believe in 
his charm, although he has himself cursed all those that 
trust such things. 

The direction of the moral action is down, the direction 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 215 

of the psychological action is down — what of the narrative ? 
Well, that is up and then down — if by "up and down" is 
meant that the protagonist becomes king in the course of the 
story, and is later overthrown. It is up — if by "up" is 
meant a continuation of the protagonist as leader. "Up" 
and "down," as terms in dramatic criticism, are naturally 
susceptible of definition. By "down" in the moral action is 
meant what Macbeth very early comprehended and ex- 
pressed, "Things bad begun make strong, themselves by ill." 
The protagonist strides on from one bad deed to a worse. 
I suppose if there really be degree in crime, it is worse for 
Macbeth to kill his friend and confidant Banquo and to 
attempt to kill Banquo's innocent son because of jealousy 
than it is to kill Duncan, who really stands in the way of 
ambition, however mild he may be ; and it is worse, I sup- 
pose, to kill innocent women and babes for no reason except 
pique than it is to kill prospective successors ; and it is worse, 
doubtless, to set a whole nation to arms and to killing than it 
is to take the life of one man, or even of two men. But this 
striding forward of the protagonist in evil gives the effect of 
a continued rise in the activities of the drama. 

This rise seems to be an attempt at climax. The pro- 
tagonist moves forward from the thought of evil to the 
execution of it ; and from one to many evil acts, and he rises 
not only in truculence but in promptness of execution. Un- 
like Brutus, Macbeth does not stop with one wicked deed. 
Each murder as a murder is more reckless and bold than the 
one before and more directly presented. The first is behind 
closed doors, the second is outside the house in a dimly- 
lighted wood, the third is in a neighboring castle. The 



216 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

tyrant at last in great activity fights with more than one 
antagonist, kills one, and is in turn himself slain. Moreover, 
there is not in this play, as in "Julius Caesar," a transference 
of interest from the protagonist to the antagonist. While 
Macduff is carefully introduced as the discoverer of Dun- 
can's murder, he is not brought prominently into the sympa- 
thy of the audience again until at the end of Act IV, when 
he resolves to fight the tyrant. The presentation of him 
previous to that resolution, though somewhat extended, is 
not attractive. Although we are told that he is noble, wise, 
and judicious, we do not feel his personality. We realize 
only that he has fled the tyrant, and confesses to have lost 
hope. This keeping of Macduff in the background as a 
personality may have been a deliberate attempt to save the 
unity of the dramatic action, and keep the interest in Mac- 
beth constantly rising. 

It seems that Shakespeare's original plan must have been 
to have no purely narrative scenes. Whether those present 
in the play as it now stands were interpolations by him him- 
self later for a special reason, or by someone else still later 
for a special reason, will never be settled, I suppose. At any 
rate, whether Shakespeare wrote those uninteresting narra- 
tive scenes of Malcolm and Macduff in the second half of 
the play, or not, there is this to be said for them : they are 
perfectly clear and withal consonant, even though they are 
superfluous. It is to be noted that they are superfluous, 
however, since we should understand all that happens and 
should be ready for the catastrophe if there were no such 
scenes interspersed. Macbeth's and the servants' announce- 
ments are enough to keep us informed. It is the presence 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 217 

of these narrative scenes that occasions most of the adverse 
comments on the "Macbeth" action. They really do not 
break the upward movement of the piece, however, but are 
only stumbling blocks to the spectators' interest. 

The fault of the narrative scenes, moreover, is not only 
in the superfluity of their content but in their narrativeness. 
They lack dramatic device. The first part of the narrative 
action runs swiftly along in the same devices as the psy- 
chological and moral actions, but not so the second part — or, 
rather, so also the second part of the drama except for the 
superfluity within it. There is much of interest in the sec- 
ond half of the play — preeminently, Macbeth's continued 
moral fall and the death of his ambition. These are well 
given by Shakespeare in the best of the witch scenes, in the 
sleep-walking scene, and in Macbeth's interview with the 
doctor. The interest does not lapse in these scenes. But 
whether there was a deliberate design by Shakespeare to 
insure the dramatic impression of climax or not, it is im- 
possible, in view of the general comment on the play, to 
ignore the impression of an up and down in this action. 

So far as the mere summary of the story goes, we say, a 
rise and fall are indicated. The protagonist in the course of 
the action becomes king and is subsequently overthrown. 
But, nevertheless, as in the case of Lear and of all Shake- 
speare's later protagonists, the overthrow is not a matter of 
ability outside but a matter of inability inside the protago- 
nist. As a conspicuous contrast with "Julius Caesar," it is a 
notable fact that at the crisis-emphasis the protagonist of 
the "Macbeth" drama does not grapple with a man antag- 
onist but with a ghost; and at the catastrophe he does not 



218 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

concern himself so much with his opponent as with the dis- 
appointing equivocation of the witches. It is a soul tragedy 
that is recorded in the central scenes and is consummated 
at the end of the play, as well as a bodily tragedy. That 
Shakespeare intended to avoid a change of dominance seems 
plain. 

Moreover, it is to be noted in considering a graphic rep- 
resentation of the action that the murder of Duncan comes 
very early in the play — in the second scene of the second 
act. The rise to the first murder is rapid and really occurs 
in the Introduction. It is not only the rise to this murder 
that the dramatist evidently means to present, but the rise 
to the next, and the next as well, where the protagonist is 
"stepped" in so far, that should he wade no further return- 
ing were as tedious as going on. Where the murders begin 
to be tedious both for the perpetrator and for the audience is 
where the moral action begins to weigh on the narrative. 
Where the moral action begins to come out strongest is the 
place where we begin to lose a sense of rise in the narrative. 
The moral drag levels the narrative rise. Though Macbeth's 
second interview with the weird sisters would be as dra- 
matically fascinating to -an Elizabethan audience as the first 
interview or as the ghost scene, yet even the crudest appren- 
tice could not miss the evidence of the moral change. It is 
the moral and psychological actions outweighing the narra- 
tive that give the sense of reversal of fortune near the mid- 
dle of the play. But there is really no reversal of fortune 
until the very end of the drama. Macbeth is not sent out 
of the country as Romeo and Hamlet were; he is not 
replaced at the middle of the action by a more virile per- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 219 

sonality as Brutus was. Materially, he holds his own to the 
last. Only at the last scene of the last act, where Macbeth 
loses his head, is he supplanted by Macduff either in interest 
or in deeds. The narrative action is consequently straight 
up from the beginning, with a sharp turn only at the end 
where Birnam wood begins its march to high Dunsinane hill' 
and Macduff — not born of woman — meets Macbeth. But 
the psychological and moral actions are straight down from 
the beginning. Possibly it is the glancing from one action 
to the others that occasions the optical illusion of a change 
in the direction of the actions near the middle of the play. 
We are never confused, though, about the course of the play 
as a whole. We are aware from the start that Macbeth is to 
fall, that the psychological and moral actions are in interest 
to take precedence of the narrative ; or, better, that the narra- 
tive is but the means by which will be displayed a great mind 
and soul tragedy. 

The weak spot in the latter part of the ''Macbeth" drama 
is not the beginning of the "return" action. The Malcolm- 
Macduff scene is but the superfluous visible preparation of 
the antagonist for the final personal combat. The spectator 
already knows before this scene who is to be the agent of 
Macbeth's physical death, and the conversation therefore 
adds nothing new. 

The return action in the sense of punishment for evil 
thoughts and deeds accompanies those evil thoughts and 
deeds all the time, and conspicuously from their inception. 
That fact is the philosophy of the whole tragedy. Macbeth's 
first seriously entertained thought of murder unfixes his hair 
and makes his seated heart knock at his ribs. His troubled 



220 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

brain immediately begins to see daggers where none are, and 
all along in the following deeds to revolt against his will. 
The crisis for the psychological action occurs in the first 
meeting with the witches ; the rest of the play is a study of 
the reaction of that thought on the mind that entertains it. 
The crisis of the moral action occurs in the first murder; 
the remainder of the play is a presentation of the complete 
deadening of all reluctance to physical and moral horrors. 
The crisis-emphasis of both actions occurs in the banquet- 
scene. The tragic incident that reviews what has gone be- 
fore and makes doubly sure what is to follow is Macbeth's 
foolish babbling, supplemented and emphasized later by his 
wife's revelations. The arrest of the catastrophe comes in 
early as the witches' pronouncements that occasion a double 
vain hope in a confused mind. This principle of equivoca- 
tion operates to the very last, not only seemingly on the mind 
of the protagonist but on the mind of the audience. And 
the material catastrophe falls sharply upon the removal of 
the final support. 

We are back now to the question of Shakespeare's original 
contributions to the Macbeth story besides the mere art of 
the presentation ; and we ask, What is his distinct advance 
in tragic structure beyond command of theatrical devices? 
We answer: Advance in the tragic idea that controls struc- 
ture. The "Macbeth" story is much more rationally con- 
nected with the psychological and philosophic actions than is 
the "Lear" story. The run of the three actions almost indis- 
solubly together gives the remarkably satisfying total effect 
of the "Macbeth" drama. If it were not for the interpola- 
tion of the few superfluous scenes, we might say that the 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 221 

three actions are never separate, yet always distinct. It is 
the reasonableness and clarity of the philosophy, above all, 
though, that conserves the interest. Mere murder itself is 
not an engaging spectacle except to persons of depraved 
tastes. But the contemplation of the change wrought in the 
soul by considered and executed evil is always intensely 
attractive, because always intensely pertinent to daily living. 
That there is also manifestation of advanced theatrical 
cleverness in the "Macbeth" drama no one would deny. 
The devices of spectacle, and surprise, and of a continuously 
threatened and suspended catastrophe were evidently so 
pleasing as stage effects as to become mannerisms of later 
imitators. Shakespeare's taste can be called in question 
perhaps only twice in this matter of twist and surprise, and 
the lines covering the points in question have by many critics 
been attributed, with some degree of finality, to other 
writers.^ The appearance of the ghost at the banquet could 
not have been better managed whether as an hallucination 
or as an "honest" ghost seen only by Macbeth. But the fact 
that at the crisis-emphasis Macbeth's opponent (Shake- 
speare's especial contribution to the dramatis personae) 
should be a ghost seems at first thought a little strange in 
view of our earlier statement of Shakespeare's evolution. 
We seem to have rounded the circle back to ghostly antag- 
onists that have not much blood in them. It seems like a 
contradiction to say that Shakespeare's work is most con- 

1 See preface to Temple "Macbeth," and Ward, Vol. II, p. 172. 
I should be inclined to consider the Malcolm-Macduff conversation 
also an interpolated passage of a later writer as much because of 
the attempt at surprise in the reversion of the sentiments expressed 
as by any other test except that of general dullness and superfluity. 



222 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

spicuous for the evolution of the antagonist, and then to say 
that in his latest plays the antagonist is of least importance — 
to say that the Macduflfs, Octavius Caesars, and the 
Aufidiuses are of little consequence in the impression the 
plays make. 

Yet the statements are both true, and are not contradic- 
tories. The latest obscurity, or generality, of the human 
antagonist is an opposite, not a repetition, of the first ob- 
scurity. The latest plays are the expression of a continued 
principle highly developed. The earlier obscurity of the 
human antagonist is accidental. The later seems intentional 
and premeditated. Like Kant, who had to destroy belief 
to make room for faith, Shakespeare had to destroy the sign 
to make room for the thing signified. There is not less 
tragic struggle but more in the later plays. The antagonist 
proper is now convincingly within the protagonist, is his 
own nature warring against itself. What Shakespeare failed 
to make plain in the "Lear" introduction, he made indis- 
putably plain in the "Macbeth." The outer symbolizes the 
inner action. The whole of Act I is really an introduction 
to the tragedy which follows. 

The explanation of the early place in the action of the 
murder of Duncan is patent when we remember that the 
"Macbeth" tragedy is not a study of the rise of a good man 
to a horrible deed — "Othello" is that — but the rise of an 
ambitious man to a horrible deed and a still more horrible 
deed, and so on, with continued and accompanying reaction 
all the time in mind and soul. There is not in the "Macbeth" 
drama the break between the introduction and the rise to the 
crisis as there is in the "Othello," because the "Macbeth" 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 223 

introduction is itself the rise to the crisis. There is not the 
same hardly explainable relation between the crisis and the 
crisis-emphasis as there is in "Lear," because the crisis in 
"Macbeth" is not thrust upon us unprepared, although it 
rightly comes very early, since the play is one emphasizing 
reaction. 

The rise of Othello is compelled, is a matter of outside 
stimulus ; hence the reaction is brief and withal satisfying. 
The fall of Lear is his own doing, though he is continuously 
pushed on by reinforcing agents. The tragic idea is correct, 
therefore, but not altogether clear. The "punishment" 
seems out of proportion to the ofifense, although the idea of 
unchecked temper is basal. We have not seen enough of the 
protagonist's fateful actions before the crisis to take his 
tragic end unquestioningly. We only hear of his previous 
actions and only through the mouths of Goneril and Regan 
after the crisis. We get the tragic idea solely by instruction, 
as it were, whereas we get the tragic result by sight. Hence 
a feeling of lack of justice in the result. The introduction 
of "Macbeth" is therefore so far better than that of "Lear" 
as it shows the protagonist before the crisis in a rise long 
enough to assure the spectator that the doer of the deed 
appreciates his own act. All through the drama the tragic 
idea is made plain both by instruction and by presentation. 
We see Macbeth rise from thought to deed, and from con- 
sidered deed to precipitate deed at the same time as we feel 
him fall from activity of mind and soul to inactivity, from 
sensibility to insensibility. Suddenly the rise and fall be- 
come one in the consummation of merited death. 

The rise in deeds gives theatrical effect; the fall in mind 



224 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

and soul gives tragic effect ; the two together give a power- 
ful dramatic effect in an action pronouncedly English and 
Elizabethan. Although he had come fully to a new concep- 
tion of tragedy, Shakespeare, the practical writer of plays, 
did not forego in the "Macbeth" drama the stage advantage 
of spectacle, or of personal combat on a field of battle be- 
tween human adversaries. In other words, he added to the 
"Richard III" material a moral reluctance on the part of the 
protagonist, and a struggle within the hero's own heart. 
This moral action is the most distinguished fact of the 
"Macbeth" tragedy. It is what gives the drama its unity 
and its superiority over so good a play as "Richard III." 
It is the moral action likewise that adds to the embodied 
British legend its life beyond life. 



Chapter XI 

The Philosophic Idea and Climax in Falling Action 

One can not mistake the matter. By the time Shakespeare 
had finished writing "Lear" and "Macbeth" he was pre- 
occupied with something besides story or structure. A 
philosophy of tragedy had grown upon him. Hamlet had 
become a mouthpiece for a great deal of moralizing: but 
Hamlet is a "good" hero, simply placed in the unfortunate 
position of having his conventional sense of duty clash with 
his temperament. Othello, though passionate, is also a good 
hero, primarily led astray by a villain. But Lear is a man 
in whose nature in itself and by itself dwells tragedy. So 
is Macbeth, so is Antony, so Coriolanus, so Timon. It was 
a large and deep conception of tragic action that haunted 
the mind of the mature Shakespeare. 

li the generally accepted chronological sequence of his 
productions be at all correct, then the following growth is 
evident : Shakespeare developed from a playwright present- 
ing with informing characterization an historical chronicle 
of violent deeds to a dramatist presenting great tragic strug- 
gle. He grew from a consideration of Elizabethan pathos 
and sentimentality, criminal boldness and meditative inde- 
cision, and of the Italian idea of the gullibility of a passion- 
ate nature, to a consideration of disposition at strife with 
itself. Moreover, this idea of tragic struggle underwent in 

225 



226 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

his mind a complete circle of evolution. It is interesting to 
note that while the plays of the last period repeat in a sense 
those of the earlier, but with a deeper conception of the 
tragic material — "Macbeth" being a more intense study of 
tyranny and murder than "Richard III" is; "Antony and 
Cleopatra," of personal attraction than "Romeo and 
Juliet"; "Coriolanus," of Roman pride and self-deception 
than "Julius Caesar"; and "Timon of Athens," of egoism 
and pyrotechnic passion than "Lear" — in turn, the idea of 
what is real catastrophe is shown remarkably developed. 
The philosophy of Hamlet is largely a questionnaire put 
into the play,^ is a more modern query superimposed upon 
an old story. While the additions reflect the author's curi- 
osity about the moral responsibility of his hero, yet the 
tragedy of the completed action resolves itself into mere 
bodily death — "Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of 
angels sing thee to thy rest." But the catastrophe of the 
"Macbeth" tragedy is something far different. Hamlet's 
death is of the body; Lear's, of the body and the mind; 
Macbeth's, of the body, mind, and soul. 

If this fact is not clear in the "Macbeth" tragedy, nothing 
is clear. If this statement does not express the continued 
and final eflfect of its triple action, then the "Macbeth" trag- 
edy is no better than the "Richard III." But if this state- 
ment be correct, then Antony, Coriolanus, and Timon may 
be considered further studies in moral and spiritual tragedy. 
Now, by "moral" one evidently can not mean anything 
mawkish or pious, or anything limited to particular deeds, 

1 There is indisputable evidence that Shakespeare went back to 
an earlier draft of the play and inserted the philosophy at various 
places. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 227 

but that general Tightness and oughtness of human conduct 
which thinking persons apprehend. For a man to fall from 
a sense of that to utter disregard of it, is to fall in soul as 
well as in mind and body. And by "soul" we must (in this 
connection, at least) mean simply those highest phenomena 
of human life, emotion and intellect; by "spirit," the 
dynamic tone of emotion and intellect. And by the "falling 
of the soul and the tragedy of spirit," we must mean (if not 
more) surely this: the loss of discrimination and the loss of 
dynamic harmony — in other words, the loss of the right 
adjustment of emotion to human living. 

In connection with Richard III there is no thought of 
soul, because no thought of emotion. Richard acts without 
feeling. It is the lack of disturbing emotion in him that 
fascinates the beholder of the play. Romeo and Juliet solve 
the problem of emotion for themselves and their families. 
Their end is reconciling, extremely pathetic, but not tragic 
in the sense that Macbeth's is tragic. Indeed, neither is 
Brutus's. He made a great mistake and paid for it with 
his life; but he thought he was right. His tragedy is a 
tragedy of mistake of reason, but not of soul. 

"His life was gentle, and the elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.' " 

The same statement might be made of Hamlet. The dis- 
turbance to Hamlet's emotion came from the outside. He 
struggled against an unwelcome duty, but finally accom- 
plished it. Exterior circumstances solved the remainder of 



228 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

the difficulty, his fear of living unhappy in his own esteem. 
However that might have resulted for other people and the 
kingdom. \ 

"He was likely, had he been put on, 
To have proved most royally." 

Othello's misadjustment was temporary. It coexisted with 
lago's malicious power, and lasted no longer. The unfor- 
tunate man soon saw his stupendous error and rectified it 
as best he could. And though he took his own life, it was, in 
his sense, "happiness to die." Moreover, he left his enemy 
to the judgxnent of the state. 

But Lear, as we have seen, did not altogether solve his 
emotional relation to the world. His mind ruined, and his 
heart still set on Cordelia's love (when she could come no 
more, "Never, never, never, never, never!"), he died, at 
strife with the gods even to the end — only more holily in 
his 'unreason' than in his reason. 

It is his partial victory in the struggle, however, that 
places "Lear" with the middle group rather than with the 
last of Shakespeare's tragedies. Macbeth, Antony, Corio- 
lanus, and Timon carry on a struggle that is a losing one 
entirely. For Macbeth there is no hope or right adjust- 
ment to living after he seriously entertains the first murder- 
ous thought. None for Antony in this play, since he has 
already met Cleopatra. None for Coriolanus, likewise, from 
the beginning; for he is at cross-fate with events not only 
in disposition but in spirit. Timon can find no right way 
of living, either — a prodigal always, Timon goes to the ex- 
treme in hate and vituperation. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 229 

The writing of "Macbeth" brought to Shakespeare's mind 
a close study of criminal ambition, and of its essential fail- 
ure. He saw plainly (for he shows plainly to us) that trag- 
edy does not reside in the mere fact of the wrong-doing, but 
in the resultant struggle. If we could do wrong and not 
care, as Macbeth says, "we'ld jump the life to come. But . . . 
we still have judgment here" — that is, 'struggle' — and the 
struggle is the tragedy that returns to plague the inventor. 
Not mere punishment in deeds ; for such would be easy to 
take! Would Coriolanus or Antony fear heavy blows? 
Each has risked his life many times. Each has often given 
and received defeat in battle. It is a turmoil of soul that 
forms his tragedy. It is the strife with the gods that puts 
him down. His own disposition running counter to the 
world-order defeats him. The spectator feels that this is the 
immanent tragedy of everyone. Catastrophe comes not 
alone because of what one does or what others do, but 
because of what one is and the world is — a strife of will 
with world, and, since the world is made up of others and 
oneself, a strife with oneself ! Timon demonstrated that go 
but in twos and there is the world! And if you cannot 
adjust the relationship, there, then, is also tragedy. Timon 
could not adjust it save with one man, and that one was 
compelled to depart quickly lest the adjustment fail. Timon 
represents the complete transformation of one's most native 
impulses into the worst self-infecting virus that ever 
poisoned a man's life — hatred of his fellow men. These 
conclusions seem like a dreary view of life, but they are 
not. They are only a view of the tragedy of life. The truth 
of Shakespeare's dramas is the truth of the world: Nature 



230 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

will not tolerate extremes. And it seems to be Shakespeare's 
especial pronouncement that she will not tolerate immoder- 
ate, self-centered irascibility — not tolerate hateful spite even 
toward the hateful. The sequence of Lear, Coriolanus, and 
Timon forms a tragic emphasis of the theme. 

In our absorption with Shakespeare's darker plays we 
must not forget his comedies and half-comedies. Numerous 
allegories have been drawn from the fact that Shakespeare 
ends his career with tragi-comedies. If we cared for the 
connotation, we might, in the study of structure, also draw 
an allegory, and that from the last of his tragedies. We 
might note that Shakespeare apparently abandoned the story 
of Timon as too bitter for what is rightly and artistically 
a play; and "Coriolanus" the last, therefore, proves to be 
the most reserved and regular of his tragic compositions, as 
a composition. But we have spent more than enough time 
in an excursion on the philosophic principle of Shakespeare's 
tragedies. What we need to see is that the idea which 
Shakespeare reached of what is essentially tragic in human 
life affected both the choice of subject and the structure 
of his later pieces, the structure in some respects giving way 
to the idea. For instance, so absorbed was Shakespeare with 
Antony's ruin that he gave us nothing else in the play. 

It was said in a previous chapter that with the writing 
of "Lear" Shakespeare had come to a conception of tragedy 
beyond technic. The truth of this statement is evinced by 
the effect of the "Antony and Cleopatra." It is at once the 
most typical and the most novel of Elizabethan productions. 
Its boldness is astounding and its beauty beyond that of 
either drama or story. It is the most poetic play and to 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 231 

many readers seems the greatest of the author's achieve- 
ments. It is clearly the deepest study of character-present- 
ment. As we realized of the "Lear" crisis-emphasis, so we 
realize of the "Antony and Cleopatra" catastrophe: it is 
the most remarkable attainment of its author in the particu- 
lar point of structure. Shakespeare devotes two whole acts 
to the elaboration of the fall of the catastrophe, and devotes 
the preceding three acts to its preparation. The whole 
tragedy of Antony, like that of Lear, is a falling action. 
The very first words are 

"Nay, but this dotage of our general's 
O'erflows the measure." 

Much criticism has been offered on the violation of the 
unities in this drama; and yet the character unity is abso- 
lute. There is one all-pervading presence — Antony's Cleo- 
patra! The unity of place is broken, if you have in your 
mind's eye our stage and the appointments it would need. 
If you think of the Elizabethan stage, you remember that a 
change of scene was scarcely noticeable. And if you throw 
yourself into the spiritual action of the piece, you appreciate 
that there are but two places in the world that make any 
difference to Antony, and that make any difference to you 
as spectator ; namely, in Cleopatra's presence or out. Antony 
is, however, a doomed man from the beginning, whether 
in or out. In truth, he always is in Cleopatra's presence 
whether spatially near her or not. She is his space, as he 
tragically declares in his first utterances. 

Freytag^ censures Shakespeare for not giving us a scene 

1 Die Technik des Dramas, pp. 64-5 with note. 



232 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

where Antony makes up his mind to return to Cleopatra — 
the climax scene, as Freytag thinks it would be. It would 
indeed of necessity be a climax scene and not only a crisis. 
How, then, could Shakespeare give us it and the great 
catastrophe also? The emotions would be the same. Not 
only in North, but in Nature's "infinite book of secrecy," 
Shakespeare had read a little. He had found out what a 
tragedy is. He had shown us in "Lear" that it is not 
primarily a decision but a disposition. The crisis for Antony 
had come long before the opening of the play. His meet- 
ing Cleopatra was his doom. The desertion of Octavia and 
the Battle of Actium are but incidents, as all other scenes 
of the play are but incidents, of the great catastrophe. 
Shakespeare's Antony did not at any time make a real 
decision to return : he always found himself returned. 

Shakespeare meant this whole play to be one action. 
That purpose is demonstrated by his reserving for late 
introduction what would in a less well-considered tragedy 
have been put as retrospective narrative at the beginning. 
It is not until Act H, Scene 2, that we get a description 
of how Cleopatra conquered Antony. Indeed, the play 
begins in the midst of her triumph, and we see the lovers 
together ; then follows their separation ; then the description 
of how she won him. This reserve is admirable. The 
description of Cleopatra in the very midst of Antony's 
renewed allegiance with Caesar by the marriage with 
Octavia of holy, cold, and still conversation, makes us feel 
the inevitableness of his return to the purser up of hearts, 
with her "infinite variety." The beginning follows the 
crisis. We do not need to see the moment of decision. It 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 233 

was there before the separation. The first lines of the play 
gave it to us. Shakespeare had learned from his own book 
of writings. He did not fall into the mistake of dividing 
his effect between two climaxes. 

Freytag seems to think that Shakespeare's foregoing of 
the scene was because of a lack of emotional material in both 
Antony and Cleopatra. I think not. I think his foregoing 
was because he sought climax at the end of his play. There 
was every reason why the lesson of "Julius Caesar" should 
be immediately in mind. I do not believe that Freytag's 
secondary explanation is true either, that an interest of the 
poet in Octavius and his sister as representatives of bigger 
things, a world order, had the determining weight. Shake- 
speare had been reading lately, too, in the mammoth folio 
of Elizabethan drama, and had scanned again the record of 
English preference. He made his offering. And with it, he 
completes the circle of his own achievement in the evolution 
of points of structure. He had adopted the catastrophe at 
the beginning of his career. Now he elaborates it. 

He gave the people their favorite scene in its highest 
form. Death? Yes. Spectacle? Yes. Antony falls on 
his sword and "quakes and stirs." Then think of the 
heaving of him aloft to Cleopatra in the monument ! Think 
of the clown with the flowers and the fruit ! The queen in 
her gorgeous robes and diadem ! The attendant women with 
their successive leave-takings ! The entrance of Caesar and 
his train ! And yet the total impression is not of spectacle 
and surely not of disunity. Nothing could surpass the 



234 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

gradual heightening of the catastrophe. The great master 
is here presenting a great tragedy of a great man — "the 
noble ruin of her magic." 

If one subtract the mechanical incongruity of change of 
scene, the total incongruity vanishes. If by the license of 
the stage we may condense into three hours the events of 
twelve, why may we not altogether take down the walls of 
time and space and see tragedy act itself out there and 
here, then and now? Such, I suppose, was the subcon- 
scious reasoning of the Elizabethan authors. And they 
had the logic of the situation ! There is no adequate reason 
why they should have narrowly limited the imagination. 
There was on the Elizabethan stage little mechanism to 
render difficult a change of scene. "Antony and Cleopatra" 
could be offered as easily as "Lear." When one takes this 
fact into mind, the violations are nil. There has been much 
throwing about of brains in the condemnation, but the trag- 
edy stands free, in all the beauty of bold construction — 
stands more for the future, I suspect, than the past. 

In the presentation of this action, Shakespeare shows 
himself curiously ahead of his times rather than behind 
them, and also ahead of our times in some respects. With- 
out being, facetious one might say that Shakespeare's 
"Antony and Cleopatra" is a moving picture show of superb 
theatrical effect and exquisite poetic accompaniment. It 
reveals a conception of a series of progressive scenes be- 
yond what our petty mechanical world has since imagined. 
We have today the moving pictures, but not the superb 
dramatic conception; and we have the written accompani- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 235 

ment, but not the exquisite poetry. Imagine, if you will, 
the effect on the artistic consciousness of our people if, in- 
stead of the vapid subscriptions now displayed, there should 
appear anything comparable to this, beneath a picture com- 
parable to the one these lines explain : 

Ant. — Dead, then? 
Mar. — Dead. 

Ant. — Unarm, Eros, the long day's task is done, 
And we must sleep. 
Or this: 

"Is it sin, 
To rush into the secret house of death 
Ere death dare come to us?" 

Or yet this : 

"Finish, good lady, the bright day is done 
And we are for the dark." 

We must not mistake the fact in a figure. Naturally, 
Shakespeare thought nothing of machines, and we would not 
reduce him to our modern cinematograph ; but we would, if 
we could, I am sure, find an accompaniment for our modern 
cinematograph somewhere near the height of the scenes and 
poetry of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," which is 
— and critics may be reconciled to the fact as a prescience 
— moving picture drama of magnificent conception and 
tragic beauty. 

"Coriolanus" is in effect, we say, a summary of Shake- 
spearean tragic structure and an advance in philosophy. 
The play has most of the dramatist's virtues and few of 



236 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

his faults. The action is evenly balanced and regularly 
developed. It presents a double material rise and fall, 
with a continued spiritual misadjustment. In other words, 
it presents two catastrophes closely bound together and ex- 
plained by a prolonged causal catastrophe. Although the 
hero "shall have a noble memory," as Aufidius promised, 
yet the memory will always be one of moral and spiritual 
tragedy. Coriolanus fails to adjust his emotions and hence 
his deeds to the exigencies of the times. He fails twice 
over: first when he changes his right deeds to wrong, and 
second when he changes his wrong deeds to right — 'right' 
and 'wrong' in these instances signifying the opinion of 
the Roman people. 

We must remind ourselves that in this study by 'moral' 
and 'spiritual' tragedy we do not mean anything super- 
worldly. The matter of the Hereafter, Shakespeare left to 
the theologians. He set forth only the tragedy of life. Both 
in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" he let his protagonist question 
the great future, but he himself made no answer. The 
answer of "Coriolanus" is the final answer so far as the 
world is concerned, and is this: sometimes when we do 
what the world considers wrong, we fail: sometimes when 
we do what the world considers right, we fail. Success or 
failure does not lie for us, however, in the approbation or 
disapproval of the world, but in the entire approval of our 
own emotions and intellects. When one's heart is divided, 
then comes tragic struggle. If Coriolanus had really despised 
the approval of others and had trusted himself alone as he 
pretended he trusted, he would never have desired the con- 
sulship ; and if he had been as superior and cold as he 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 237 

maintained he was, he would not have yielded to his private 
sentiments. He falls both times because of wilful misin- 
terpretation of his own nature. He was not large and 
public-spirited as he set himself up to be — neither for Rome 
nor against Rome. What he takes for virtue and worthi- 
ness in himself are in half their manifestations self-centered 
pride and spiteful choler. 

There is something very noble in despising the applause 
of the commonalty; but to seek the reward that only the 
commonalty can give, and at the same time contemn the 
giver and discredit the gift while seeking it, and to appear 
to consider as an unwithholdable right what can actually 
be got only as a free offering from the people — to do this 
is surely to enter upon a tragic struggle not only with "the 
many-headed beast" but with oneself at the same time. The 
picture of Coriolanus, like that of Lear and of Timon, is not 
altogether attractive — less in some respects than either of 
the others — but it is large and tragic. The zigzag path to 
disgrace and ruin is clear cut. The figure plunging down 
it is commanding. 

The spiritual action of the piece is unmistakable. It is 
catastrophe from the first. Coriolanus is his own "sick 
man," who desires most that which increases his evil. No 
one could misconceive the beginning. A worthy man is to 
fall because of his unworthiness. The character-sketch of 
him that the First Citizen gives is coldly correct. It lacks 
only sympathetic appreciation of what is really noble in 
Coriolanus — a fearlessness in action and an innate prefer- 
ence for deeds rather than words. This sympathy the spec- 
tator gives before the fall is done ; but a critic who wishes 



238 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

to understand the tragedy should not miss this first incisive 
sketch. It was put in by Shakespeare for a directive pur- 
pose. Together with the Second Citizen's reply it forms 
the keynote of the entire play. 

First Cit. — I say unto you, what he hath done famously, 
he did it to that end, though soft-conscienced men can 
be content to say it was for his country, he did it to 
please his mother and to be partly proud; which he 
is, even to the altitude of his virtue. 

Second Cit. — What he can not help in his nature, you 
account a vice in him. You must in no way say he 
is covetous. 

Manifestly what Coriolanus does not help in his nature 
reacts as a vice in him. And it reacts from the beginning. 
The rise that the protagonist effects each time is patently 
but a swimming with fins of lead. And his activities for 
popularity are a hewing down of oaks with rushes. 

There has been some foolish talk to the effect that Shake- 
speare shows contempt for the common people in this play. 
Anyone who has meditatively read the opening scene can 
not misunderstand. It is Q)riolanus's contempt that is set 
forth. Moreover, the way in which Coriolanus indulges his 
contempt makes tragedy. What truth there is in his accusa- 
tions of the mob, is truth for everybody and for all ages. 
To accuse Shakespeare of pointed disrespect to the common 
people, is to identify him with Coriolanus. One might as 
well identify him with Lear. To identify him with any 
character is to refuse to allow his imagination free play 
with his selected material. 

It is clearly evident that Shakespeare set out to put upon 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 239 

the boards a tragedy of spirit, not a lesson in morals, nor a 
moral lesson, but a representation of the misadjustment to 
living of an imperious character. Even the little that the 
dramatist changed his historical material shows indisputa- 
bly, I think, what had come to be his idea of a tragic action. 

The choice itself of Coriolanus partly reveals the idea : for 
there is nothing despicable, or loose, or licentious, or crimi- 
nal, or insane, about Coriolanus. He is more normal than 
any of Shakespeare's other late tragic heroes ; and yet he is 
tragic. To some readers, he seems the most tragic ; because 
he most wilfully pulls down disaster on his own head. There 
was no need of such a tragic end, except the need of 
Coriolanus's disposition. His desire for preferment was 
compelling, but the kind he sought was impossible for him. 
He could not have held it if he had got it, and he could not 
get it, though so far as mere merit of deed went, he 
deserved it. 

Shakespeare omits and selects so as to increase the im- 
pression of the willfulness of the protagonist: for instance, 
Plutarch says that when Coriolanus understood that his con- 
tinued despite of the rabble would prejudice the safety of 
the other patricians, upon a pledge from the tribunes that 
they would accuse him of only one thing — designing to 
establish arbitrary government — he voluntarily submitted to 
trial and offered himself for whatever punishment might be 
inflicted provided only that the tribunes would keep faith 
with the senate. They did not, of course, and Coriolanus, 
being unprepared with an answer to their attack, said the 
wrong thing, and was banished. Now, in the great scenes 
that Shakespeare imagines and puts for the third act of 



240 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

his play, the intolerance and insolence of Coriolanus are 
not bated one jot for the sake of Rome and the patricians ; 
but for the sake only of his mother does he start back to the 
market place with a promise to speak more humbly. 

Again, Plutarch has Valeria appear only in the second 
half of the story. There she, with other women of Rome, 
makes a visit to Volumnia and begs her to intercede for the 
city. The inspiration as to how to save the people and the 
honor of the result belong therefore to her and the other 
women, and entail a little episode in the narrative, wherein 
the women as a reward for their wisdom are allowed to 
build at public expense a temple to the Feminine Disposer of 
Fortune. In an early chronicle play all this episode would 
have been duly presented ; but Shakespeare not only omits 
it,^ but to secure better the unity of the action of his drama, 
he introduces the ladies early and makes Valeria's part 
entirely subsidiary throughout. He uses her only to make 
plain Volumnia's character. He gives the announcing of 
how to save the city to the well-tried and otherwise busy 
Cominius, and drops the necessary preparatory hint casually, 
as it were. This change results in reducing the number of 
prominent characters and helps keep the interest centered 
on Coriolanus. 

Volumnia herself, in truth, is very circumspecth' held 
down as a secondary character for the sake of unity and 
clarity of action. Her early introduction serves the same 
end as her subordination ; for had she come upon the stage 
in all her power only in the second half of the play, her 

1 He reduces it to an allusion in Coriolanus' speech : "Ladies, you 
deserve to have a temple built you," (V, iii, 206-7). 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 241 

novelty and prominence would have tended to split the action 
in two; for if she were not introduced earlier, much time 
would have needed to be spent on her in the second half of 
the play in order to make her part explicable, and the expan- 
sion would have resulted in a slow movement somewhat like 
that of the Malcolm-Macduff scenes in "Macbeth." Or, if 
she were treated another way, if character-development of 
her were neglected for the sake of rapidity in both halves 
of the play, the spectator would have been likely to mis- 
understand Coriolanus's feelings at the time of the great 
change in his deeds that precipitates the catastrophe. Like 
the "soft-conscienced" people, which the First Citizen talks 
about, the spectator might have thought that Coriolanus did 
what he did for the mere sake of mercy or through repentt- 
ant love for his country. 

Shakespeare was careful to introduce in the first half of 
the play all the important characters of the second half, a 
provision that lessens the possibility of a misunderstanding. 
Even Aufidius is thoroughly brought out in Act I in scenes 
supplementary to the original narrative. Both his great 
ability and Coriolanus's esteem of him are emphasized so 
that the subsequent relationship of the two rivals shall 
appear reasonable. 

These changes that Shakespeare made from the original, 
though in some respects slight, are extremely important. 
They heighten the responsibility of the hero. What con- 
tempt there is of the common people — and there is a great 
contempt — is part and parcel of the tragedy. An inquiry 
as to how many of the utterances may be Shakespeare's 
opinion is quite aside from an appreciation of the play. 



242 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

This is not a pessimistic drama. If, on the one hand, 
Shakespeare is not necessarily here to be considered as vent- 
ing any spleen either on life or on the commonalty in his 
setting forth a tragic character, on the other hand he is not 
to be considered as delivering a sermon on the blessings of 
democracy, or on the horror of carrying war against one's 
native city. The play is a tragedy of spirit and represents 
the catastrophe inherent in the way of doing things and 
omitting to do things. Moreover, this is not a pathetic 
drama. Shakespeare is not "soft conscienced." He is not 
asking your pity for Coriolanus, but your understanding 
of his tragic constitution. Coriolanus fell, not through his 
mercy or patriotism or a chance conjunction of affairs; he 
made the conjunction himself, and he fell through the in- 
exorable laws of his own disposition. 

Any thinking man may know how a mob will act under 
certain conditions. The result is not problematic, but is 
one of the facts of the world. But Coriolanus was not a 
thinking man. To refuse to reckon on bad results when 
the conditions are plainly bad is to pull disaster down upon 
oneself with one's own blind foolishness. "Pray be coun- 
sell'd," says his mother, 

"I have a heart as little apt as yours, 
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 
To better vantage." 

The combination of a stout nature, proud heart, and 
small judgment spells 'solitariness'; but when possessed 
by one who is ruled by an unquenchable lust for prefer- 
ment in a time that requires great caution and tolerance 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 243 

on the part of all who would lead, the combination spells 
inevitable failure. Shakespeare carefully sets forth the 
times as well as his hero and thus makes the moral and 
spiritual tragedy clear. 

This setting forth of the times occupies what may be 
called the first and second "rise" of the action — the rise in 
dramatic activities. Shakespeare had always recognized 
the English preference for activity on the stage. He gave 
it in "Lear" as an underplot ; in "Macbeth" as devised spec- 
tacle ; in "Antony and Cleopatra" as multiplicity of changing 
and gorgeous scenes. "Coriolanus" affords no underplot 
and no spectacle, and there appears to be an attempt to 
reduce the number of changes of scene. The liveliness 
comes from the presence of a crowd, which is especially 
legitimate in such a play, and from the presented soldierly 
activities of the protagonist in the capture of Corioli and in 
the personal combat with Aufidius. These two war scenes 
are brought together as successive. In the original, as we 
noticed before, Aufidius is not mentioned until after the 
banishment. His introduction in the first half serves two 
purposes: liveliness and unity — a natural and an acquired 
excellence in Elizabethan drama. 

The material action early runs up to the proclaiming of 
Marcius as Coriolanus, Act I, Scene 9, while the spiritual 
action drops down to a particular misadjustment when 
Coriolanus refuses to allow spontaneous praise of him by 
the mouths of the common soldiers in "acclamations hyper- 
bolical." Heretofore the pride of Marcius has been general, 
and expressed in general denouncements of the general 
foolishness of the people ; but now his hauteur and disdain 



244 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

become particular in reference to his own deserts. He is 
commendably proud in not wishing so much as one-tenth of 
the spoils in reward for his services, but he comes near to 
insulting his commander, when in refusal, he calls the 
offer "a bribe" to pay his sword; and when with male- 
dictions he peremptorily stops the honest shouts of the 
soldiers, and implies that they are all hypocrites, he goes 
too far, as the wise Cominius tells him : 

"Too modest are you; 
More cruel to your good report than grateful 
To us that give you truly." 

Act I, then, completed with its ten scenes, serves as an 
introduction of the characters of all the personages, a first 
step in the material rise of the protagonist, and as the key- 
note of the spiritual tragedy with a first definite drop in 
descent. 

Act II serves as the second step in the rise up to the first 
catastrophe. The people promise to make the hero consul. 
It is the peculiar excellence of this drama that the protago- 
nist rises to his catastrophe each time. Shakespeare has 
conquered here the virtue he seems to have been in pursuit 
of since the writing of "Lear" ; namely, to be able to pre- 
serve the interest of the spectator with some sort of rise and 
yet at the same time convey the general impression of a 
falling action with increased intensity. By 'rise' here, we 
mean that the protagonist succeeds in getting into a kind 
of harmony with other people, though it is not a spiritual 
harmony, and succeeds partially in carrying out his wishes. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 245 

Act III presents the first catastrophe — the crisis-catastro- 
phe, as it were — the entire break with the Romans. 
Coriolanus goes so far as to start to resist with a sword 
the representatives of public order. At last as a compro- 
mise between further trial and instant death, he is banished. 
Coriolanus succeeds only partially, we say, for the people 
reject him after he proves that he can not do what he has 
set out to do — humble himself before them. The crisis- 
deed of Coriolanus is, therefore, not completed. Nothing 
results from the will of Coriolanus but his disappointment. 
He does not succeed in becoming consul and overbearing 
the populace, as Brutus succeeded in ridding the state of 
Caesar, or as Hamlet in finally getting his revenge, or as 
Othello in killing those whom he thought he had a right 
to kill. Coriolanus is more like Lear, enraged because of 
circumstances and venting his spite in words. He is much 
like Antony in reaping the aversion of his native city, in 
slipping down from a place of honor and service in her 
behalf to one of leadership of a foreign foe. But Corio- 
lanus is most like Antony and Lear in not being able to get 
the better of his disposition. His pride on the one hand 
and his intense anger on the other control him. He is, like 
Lear and Antony, a doomed man from the beginning. Re- 
action is on him all the time. He wishes to be pre-eminent, 
but his spirit elicts dislike and final repudiation. One can 
not be pre-eminent politically without the allegiance of the 
voters. The populace was the voters. Coriolanus hated 
and openly despised the populace. He went furthest in 
expression when he should have been most humble. His 
mother sums up his crisis thus: 



\ 

246 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Vol. — O son, son, son ! 

I would have had you put your power well on, 
Before you had worn it out. 

Cor. — Let go. 

Vol. — You might have been enough the man you are 
With striving less to be so: lesser had been 
The thwarting of your dispositions, if 
You had not show'd them how you were dispos'd, 
Ere they lack'd power to cross you. 

These first scenes of Act III are a true mental crisis for 
the protagonist. When he goes back to try his humility 
for a second time, he discovers himself to himself. He 
sees whether the people respect him more or hate him more, 
whether he loves his country more or himself more. In 
his talk with his mother he likewise reveals to the audience 
her power over him. This is a transition scene (III, 2) 
to the emphasis of the mental crisis, and, while it leads 
to that emphasis, it very appropriately also prepares for the 
final catastrophe. This transition scene has in it the mot de 
situation : 

Men. — Ay, mildly. 

Cor. — Well, mildly be it then. Mildly ! 

As in "Antony and Cleopatra" the crisis-deed is not 
shown at all, so in the true sense there is no crisis-deed 
in "Coriolanus ;" for in both these plays the tragic fact is 
the more disposition of the protagonist than his deeds. 
Antony's nature, the destructive element in it, was exactly 
complementary to Cleopatra's being, and the mere fact of 
his ever coming near to her was his ruin, not any 'geo- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 247 

graphical' return he might make. He reverted to her more 
than once without willing to do so. Plutarch makes this 
phenomenon very plain, and Shakespeare has unerringly 
followed Plutarch. Moreover, the dramatist did not pro- 
pose to tell us a simple love-story, nor yet one wherein 
jealousy of two women could set the world by the ears. 
He designed to present the tragedy, not of All for Love, 
nor the World Well Lost, but of the reciprocal destructive- 
ness of personalities. So with Coriolanus, the tragedy — 
and hence the crisis — is not the destructiveness of deed, but 
the reciprocal destructiveness of disposition and opportunity. 
Coriolanus's disposition was exactly set to rebound with 
tremendous harshness upon the least irritation by the crowd. 
The mere fact of his attempting personally to plead with the 
people for himself was his ruin. 

The crisis-emphasis presents the face-to-face struggle of 
the opposing parties — Coriolanus and the people. It is 
extremely fortunate for the unity of the drama that the 
mother in the transition prefigures her part as representa- 
tive of the people later and helps form the tragic incident. 
The tragic turn of this emphasis becomes a turn down as 
well as an arrest — a semi-catastrophe : semi, because the 
protagonist is not killed ; but catastrophe, because the larger 
part of his life is ended. His Roman life is done. 

In the sense in which this action is a falling action, the 
beginning of the play is the beginning of the reaction. The 
people at once show their resentment against Coriolanus and 
propose to kill him. Hence in all the conflicts of Marcius 
with them there is the under-current of that resolve. Like- 
wise, the great man's contempt for them — for their 



248 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

pusillanimity and greed and fickleness — is sharply empha- 
sized. Accordingly not the banishment (that is a surprise), 
but the final catastrophe is what is continuously awaited. 
We know, on analyzing our feelings that we did not, from 
the first, expect the candidacy for consulship to succeed. 
We expected the killing. "Let us kill him." "Is it a ver- 
dict?" "Let it be done!" "Against him first: he is a very 
dog to the commonalty." These are the expressions that 
we have heard and have had in our consciousness from the 
beginning. When Coriolanus is not killed, but banished, 
every on-looker feels the scene to be not the completion of 
expectation, but only the arrest of it. The expectation is 
Coriolanus's death. The action leads, therefore, through 
the catastrophe-arrest to the end of the play. These scenes 
are, however, for the protagonist a true psychic crisis and 
crisis-emphasis. 

Act IV is a continuation of the tragic emphasis, in that 
it reviews the past and sets the action on the rise definitely 
toward the final catastrophe. Scene i emphasizes the 
'solitariness' of the protagonist's temper. Even in his mis- 
fortune he would stand alone. He refuses all companion- 
ship. Scene 2 continues the emphasis with an old-fashioned 
lamentation and railing scene of the women. During the 
giving and taking of insults, one of the tribunes in an in- 
sincere wish states again the real action of the part of the 
tragedy that is past and strikes the keynote of the rest 
that is coming: 

"I would he had continued to his country 
As he began, and not unknit himself 
The noble knot he made." 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 249 

Scene 3 is a connecting scene ; and Scene 4 is the great scene 
of the compact between Coriolanus and Aufidius, wherein 
the whole spirit of Caius Marcius Coriolanus is brought 
out — his exulting satisfaction in his past deeds, his personal 
bravery, his confidence and pride in himself at all times 
regardless of others, his thirst for preeminence, his chagrin, 
his spite, his daring hope of revenge. Aufidius is brought 
out, too, but quite clearly as a character secondary to the 
protagonist. Shakespeare does not make here the mistake 
he made with Antony in "Julias Caesar." Aufidius is the 
reconciled bodily antagonist that is to be once more later 
the final antagonist, and is to win, but he never for an instant 
overshadows Coriolanus, except in humble generosity. 

The necessarily somewhat slow movement of the con- 
ference scene is quickened by the excellent device of a 
banquet, which the historical source by one or two words 
affords Shakespeare the opportunity of introducing. Only, 
this time, in accordance with the hints of the narrative, 
the banquet is placed behind the scenes, and it is the coming 
and going of the servingmen that the audience witnesses. 
Their talk furnishes the necessary information and the 
favorite Elizabethan comic relief. The tragi-comic scenes in 
"Macbeth" have been the subject of much controversy; but 
those in "Coriolanus" go unquestioned for two reasons : they 
are not out of tone with serious drama, are a relief from 
great tension as the accompaniment of it. Aufidius invites 
Coriolanus in friendship into the banquet. 

The change of Aufidius later is occasioned inevitably by 
Coriolanus's innate 'solitariness.' Coriolanus both by habit 
and nature can not share. He always usurps. This usurpa- 



250 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

tion with its result to Rome and its result to Coriolanus, 
together with his death, occupies Act V. 

The less honorable treachery of Aufidius is in a material 
sense a reaction of the more honorable treachery of Corio- 
lanus. Aufidius, however, is but a technical antagonist to 
bring to death the protagonist. The real antagonist in the 
spiritual action is the Roman people; or, better, Volumnia 
representing the Roman people; or, better still, human na- 
ture. Coriolanus was superior to all but his mother and 
his native impulse of obedience to her. He had wilfully 
brought about a situation in which his mother and his native 
impulse counted toward his spirit as opposing forces. He 
could not but lose: they outweighed not only revenge but 
honor pledged, repledged, and boasted of. Act V accord- 
ingly brings to an end what is really a spiritual tragedy — 
a misfit of mind and heart to deeds attempted. This tragedy 
presents revenge, but very much changed in spirit. Still 
ugly, but how little ugly, when it begins with such noble 
sentiments as the forgiveness and admiration of each other, 
by the two greatest warriors of the time — each noble when 
the other is not there, both nobler when together! How 
little ugly, when it closes with a remarkable scene of high- 
est deference to a mother! Coriolanus is once more like 
Lear in that though he pays the full penalty, he does not 
seem to be conquered, and his wrath seems not to be given 
up but simply to melt away in the presence of the one he 
loves. Shakespeare has twice enshrined this most beautiful 
of all sentiments, the love between parent and child. 

There is a secondary arrest of the catastrophe in Act V, 
Scene 3, just after the close of Coriolanus's speech to his 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 251 

mother. Aufidius acknowledges having been moved withal. 
But Coriolanus suddenly ends the brief respite by volun- 
teering to Aufidius the startling assurance 

"I'll not to Rome. I'll back with you ; and pray you 
Stand to me in this cause.' (11. 198-199.) 

This announcement and request are a distinct surprise and 
practically end whatever hope there may have existed for 
Coriolanus's safe return to Rome, and they start a new 
minor suspense. By the words "this cause," Coriolanus 
means his justification before the leading men of Corioli. 
Aufidius is the chief of those leading men, however, and 
he announces immediately his attitude as hostile for the 
future ; but when Coriolanus appears to speak to the lords, 
the audience yet hopes that he will be successful. With 
Aufidius's word "traitor" the hope vanishes. This little 
incident, necessary to the story, forms in a way a final 
small suspense. 

The whole drama is really, however, an example of a 
suspended catastrophe, as is "Antony and Cleopatra." 
Coriolanus is a much better piece of work from the point 
of view of a drama to be spoken and acted on a bare stage. 
It has a lively series of events for the groundwork of the 
scenes, and a positive protagonist, who "builds up" his 
catastrophe immediately before the eyes of the spectator. 
That is, while the direction of the spiritual action is fixed 
from the beginning and is indisputably down, the protago- 
nist, nevertheless, moves forward lustily on the upward 
slope of destruction. The first catastrophe, or the "crisis- 
catastrophe," as we have called it, is therefore really an en- 
larged arrest of the final catastrophe. 



252 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

This drama may from one point of view be considered 
an example of the expansion of the principal points of the 
structure of a falling action, as "Othello" may be con- 
sidered the expansion of the points of a rising action. 
Coriolanus's greatest activity in deeds is at the opening of 
the play; Othello's, at the close. The middle scene of 
the "Othello" action is the definite entrance of the exciting 
force into the mind of the protagonist; the middle in 
"Coriolanus" is the definite arrest of the catastrophe. The 
highest tension in the "Othello" occurs in the scene of the 
crisis-deed, which is closely joined with the final scene; 
the highest tension in the "Coriolanus" is connected with the 
catastrophe-deed. In a large sense, this whole play is the 
reaction of Coriolanus's spirit upon himself. No one deed 
can mark the beginning of a spiritual tragedy; hence here, 
instead, are oflFered the lively activities of accomplishment 
in which the protagonist plainly shows his tragic spirit again 
and again. 

Macbeth fell into moral tragedy through mental misad- 
justment. He argued that since he could carry through an 
assassination and not be called to account by his fellow- 
men, he could continue undisturbed in peaceful possession 
of the benefits. He failed to take into consideration his own 
mental make-up, which was at variance with the course he 
set out upon. He was a timid man and he should have 
acknowledged the fact and not been led away by his ambi- 
tion in the person of his fearless wife. One's mind reacts 
"after its kind" at all critical periods, but Macbeth did not 
reckon on the fact. He was surprised by his own reaction. 

So Coriolanus fell into moral tragedy through spiritual 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 253 

misadjustment to his times. He argued that because of his 
personal bravery in combats which pleased the Roman peo- 
ple, he could carry through an election to a civic preferment 
that required great restraint of spirit. But he did not pro- 
ceed so far even as Macbeth. Coriolanus's first catastrophe 
results from his inability to restrain his spirit, and his sec- 
ond, from his persistent indulgence of that spirit in a strange 
use of military prowess. At last he is in utter confusion 
morally. Coriolanus falls in an immediate conflict of honor 
with honor, honorable honor with dishonorable honor ; but 
he falls primarily and fundamentally through contempt for 
the common people. He did not think that contempt of the 
common people could transform itself in his life into a 
struggle of honor with honor, a turmoil within his own 
heart. But it so transformed itself. His spiritual misad- 
justment to the course he undertook is as clearly evident in 
the second half of the play as in the first. The two halves 
are one, through a skillful welding together of the successive 
activities by careful selection and omission from the narra- 
tive source and by a continued demonstration and emphasis 
of the tragic idea. Dramatic climax is present in the rela- 
tion the two catastrophes bear to each other : that of cause 
and effect, or that of successive and cumulative effects of 
the same cause. In other words, increasingly intense and 
continued eventuation of character into failure is the action 
of the "Coriolanus" tragedy. Naturally and easily, there- 
fore, it presents climax in a falling action. Shakespeare 
had been gradually approaching this achievement since the 
writing of "Lear." 



Chapter XII 
Structure 

At the risk of tiresome repetition let me acknowledge once 
more that the technic of drama is hardly more than a set 
of terms. But so is any other science, or theory of phe- 
nomena, almost merely a set of terms. When the terms 
are once understood and the phenomena represented by them 
recognized, then the body of knowledge is complete. What 
remains is application, or practice. The terms used in this 
book are, I trust, self-explanatory. The object of the study 
has been to set forth the phenomena that gave rise to the 
modern theory of the structure of a drama, such a theory, 
for instance, as Freytag maintains, such a theory as has 
been outlined in the introduction of this book as the com- 
mon property of all playgoers. Now, if the points of struc- 
ture that we pretend to find in Elizabethan drama be any- 
thing worth while, be anything essential, they must be found 
in all good plays, ancient, modern, and Elizabethan. 

We have studied here only the Elizabethan; but we re- 
member that the Greeks had a theory of playwriting, and 
nobody disputes that the moderns have one. A more or less 
common technic develops and is operative as a theory, 
whether acknowledged or not, in every age wherein the 
drama flourishes. In literature, antecedents have a deter- 
mining influence on consequents whether the antecedents 

254 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 255 

be invariable or not. General likeness serves in this field 
for invariability. Some persons have talked as if they 
thought that each Elizabethan worked in ignorance of ante- 
cedents and wrote absolutely by caprice, creating literature 
blindly. Such was not the case. Although quickly devel- 
oped, Elizabethan literature was nevertheless developed. 
There is a great difference between the tentative lyrics of 
Wyatt and Surrey and the finished sonnets of Shakespeare, 
between the primitive situations of "Cambyses" and the 
thrilling scenes of "Macbeth"; the difference, however, is 
one not of kind but of degree, one of attention and gradu- 
ated development through forty years or more. A close 
relationship exists between the first and the last play, a 
relationship made close by intervening steps in technic. 
"Tancred and Gismunda" and "Othello" are both Italianate 
dramas, but the difference in the two tragedies is not a dif- 
ference that came to existence in Italy and Italian literature. 
The difference came to existence in England and in the 
minds of English playwrights. By 1604 an English 
dramatist had learned how to construct a tragedy at once 
lively and unified. We have traced in the plays themselves 
the evidence of a growing knowledge of technic, and have 
watched the emphasis shift from one point to another until 
a whole beautiful structure, under the control of a com- 
pletely evolved philosophic idea, was full in consciousness. 
It may not be amiss to review now with liberal definitions 
the points as they appeared. 

In the medieval miracle and morality plays Elizabethan 
audiences became accustomed to seeing, and priestly and 
secular dramatists became accustomed to presenting, situ- 



256 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

ation and spectacle making a strong emotional appeal. The 
situation best liked in serious plays was one of torture and 
death. With the imitation of Senecan drama came a reali- 
zation of the advantage of a dominating motive ; and with 
the great popularity of Tamburlaine and the Jew of Malta, 
following close upon the popularity of Hieronimo, there was 
forced upon every homely mother-wit the consciousness of 
the unmistakable superiority of plays with emphasized 
protagonists to plays without them. The chief struggler and 
his supreme passion must thereafter be clear in all likable 
dramas. With the advent of Shakespeare's keen mind and 
facile pen there came into Elizabethan playwriting a forma- 
tive power that was destined not only to make Elizabethan 
drama an artistic thing but to remake and complete the 
world's conception of tragic action. 

Shakespeare accepted the Marlowesque play and set about 
improving it. To the idea of the emphasized protagonist he 
added that of the emphasized antagonist and a tragic strug- 
gle between them. That this struggle should end disastrously 
for the protagonist Shakespeare seems to have considered 
an indisputable convention. He adopted it and finally spent 
his most beautiful poetry upon it. Greek tragedy had never 
held to this idea, nor indeed had Senecan. But no soul- 
wracked Shakespearean protagonist goes forth alive. None 
goes forth maimed and blind. They all sin, they all strug- 
gle, they all die. It is not the sin or not the dying, however, 
that makes the Shakespearean protagonist of absorbing in- 
terest: it is the struggle. Through that shows forth the 
tragedy. We have seen how the idea of what is tragic devel- 
oped in Shakespeare's mind from the popular conception of 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 257 

the villainy of a bragging murderer to the struggle of a 
spirit out of harmony with its times. Along with this devel- 
opment of philosophic idea went an interesting evolution of 
points of structure, revealed in manifest emphasis on parts 
of the action. 

At first with attention to the antagonist came increasing 
art in portraiture together with nicer elaboration of situ- 
ations showing contrast of characters (part of "Richard 
III" and all of "Richard 11"). Next, as if in protest against 
narrative plays and ancient technic, in the presentation of 
antagonism complicated by love and fate, appeared unmis- 
takably emphasized, along with fine portraits and contrast- 
ing situations, some especially lively incidents and very nat- 
ural sentiments and speech, making tragic action for the first 
time truly dramatic ("Romeo and Juliet"). The advan- 
tage of a keynote scene was suggested. 

A keynote scene, as Shakespeare perfected it subsequently 
in "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," and "Macbeth," is the first 
scene of the play, is short, is detached from the succeeding 
action, contains no very important personage, and is not 
essential to an understanding of the story, but is withal 
distinctly helpful and vivifying, striking clearly and bril- 
liantly the tone of the whole piece. In "Romeo and Juliet" 
and in "Coriolanus" there is all the effect of a keynote scene 
with the following variations from our definition: As 
printed in our modern texts, the keynote situation in these 
two plays does not occupy quite the whole scene, but either 
slips into or is transformed in the latter part into a character 
presentment of the protagonist. The structural function of 
the first hundred-or-so lines, however, remains the same. 



258 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

Naturally the keynotes vary in pitch and quality as the plays 
vary. In "Romeo and Juliet" the tone is high and nervous, 
introducing the empty but fatal quarreling of the two houses. 
In "Julius Caesar" it is medium in pitch and changeable in 
quality, as the commoners are silly and the tribunes in 
earnest. In "Hamlet" it is very sensibly low, somber and 
dignified. In "Macbeth" it is wholly minor and weird, sug- 
gestive of the ill events to follow. In "Coriolanus" it is 
high without being nervous, and ominous without being 
weird. The crowds upon the stage at the beginning of 
"Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," and "Coriolanus" are 
as different and individual as single persons are, and yet no 
one of these crowds ceases for a minute to be a crowd. 

After "Romeo and Juliet," perhaps because of attention 
to the Senecan suggestions therein, probably also because 
of the course of political events of his time, Shakespeare 
passed to the retributive idea and an emphasized antagonist. 
The retributive idea as first used by Shakespeare is one of 
punishment in kind by a human antagonist brought upon the 
stage and shown as roused to action by the protagonist's 
chief deed directly presented. As later used, the retributive 
idea becomes the reaction of disposition and character, 
though there is present at the end of the catastrophe a repre- 
sentative antagonist. Either conception occasions, if not the 
presentation of that chief deed, necessarily an emphasis of 
it in a review given when the punishment conspicuously be- 
gins. The deed we have called the crisis-deed; and the 
emphasis of it, the crisis-emphasis. 

In the choosing of terms for this study there has been the 
endeavor to avoid the confusion often found in dramatic 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 259 

criticism, where no clear distinction is made between phys- 
ical deed and mental distress, between crisis-act and crisis- 
realization, between the middle of the play as a mere middle 
and the middle of the play as a center toward which and 
from which important actions flow ; and where no clear dis- 
tinction is made between crisis and climax. Climax as a 
technical term does not signify crisis, but may signify some- 
thing that starts therein ("Lear"), or culminates therein 
("Julius Caesar"), or proceeds therethrough ("Othello"). 

In this book, by crisis-deed we shall continue to mean 
what we have meant all along ; namely, that particular action 
performed by the protagonist which when realized and re- 
turned upon him proves to be the cause of his death. The 
source of this crisis is always the story. Brutus's deed is 
the blow at Caesar ; Hamlet's, the blow at Claudius ; Othello's, 
the killing of Desdemona; Lear's, the banishment of Cor- 
delia and the dividing of his kingdom ; Macbeth's, the mur- 
der of Duncan; Antony's is not shown; Coriolanus's is not 
completed. The present definition of this technical point, 
since the word "crisis" is included in it, will sound strange 
to those persons who have always associated the idea of 
crisis-deed with only the middle of the play. I wish to chal- 
lenge the habit of polarized thought concerning the term. 
The thought is correct in connection with "Julius Caesar," 
but not in the same way with any other of Shakespeare's 
tragedies. Why should one see no further than the Brutus- 
Antony action? Shakespeare himself saw further. Ask the 
ordinary theorist what he understands by crisis, and he will 
say, "the turning point in the hero's career," or "that place 
in the story where the protagonist's deeds begin to react on 



260 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

him," or "that place in the course of events where the pro- 
tagonist's will comes out strongest and he does the deed 
which causes his death," These are good definitions. But, 
perverse inconsistency! the application of them is usually 
based on a presumption, as is shown by the fact that if you 
quiz further as to where this deed occurs you will be told 
that it occurs "in the middle of the play" ! The theorist has 
forgot to look at the phenomena. In Shakespeare's tragedies 
dating after the "Julius Caesar," except in the "Coriolanus," 
the crisis-deed is not to be found in the middle of the play, 
and in the "Coriolanus" the deed is but a half-deed. 

The placing of the crisis-deed at the end of a series of pre- 
meditated events occasions a continuous rise in interest until 
the deed be reached ; but the elaboration of the deed as the 
fulfilment of expectation tends to complete the action, and 
anything more than emphasis of the deed seems like another 
play. There is thus the effect of two tragedies in the 
"Julius Caesar"; but after 1600, as we say, Shakespeare is 
found to have avoided presenting the crisis-deed in the 
middle of the action. "Coriolanus" is the exception that 
proves the rule. In "Hamlet" the crisis-deed (physical 
blow) is at the end of the play; in "Othello," less than three 
hundred lines from the end ; in "Lear" at the beginning ; in 
"Macbeth," off the stage between the first and second scenes 
of the second act, presented indirectly through the feelings 
of the perpetrators. In "Antony and Cleopatra" the crisis- 
deed is not shown at all. The crisis as a psychological fact 
for both Antony and Cleopatra occurred before the open- 
ing of the play and is narrated in retrospective description 
by a subordinate actor later. If a person chooses to con- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 261 

sider Antony's last return to Cleopatra as the crisis, there is 
still the same phenomenon : the deed is not presented. 
Shakespeare avoided presentation of the crisis-event in 
this play for one of two reasons : either because he thought 
he could not present it or because he preferred climax at the 
end of the action. That "Coriolanus" is at once an advance 
in philosophy and a summary of Shakespeare's technic is 
revealed naturally enough by the middle of the play, where 
there both is and is not a crisis-deed presented as the center 
of the action. Analysis of the center of that play depends 
on what interpretation is put upon the word "deed." If 
standing for the consulship without success be a deed, then 
there is a crisis-deed near the middle of the play; if failure 
to accomplish be not a deed, as Hamlet's failure is not, then 
the crisis in "Coriolanus" becomes a mental crisis; and we 
get, instead of Coriolanus's success and the result of it, the 
result of his disposition, in an incident which, by its turn 
upon Coriolanus and his subsequent return upon it, imparts 
to those middle scenes the eflfect of a suspended catastrophe ; 
it is the suspense of the catastrophe that affords rise and 
climax in that play. 

Now, there are clearly two conceptions of the term "rise" 
as used in dramatic criticism. One is popular, a rise in 
interest, occasioned by ever-increasing intensity of efifect in 
the scenes, which in turn is usually caused by long suspended 
expectation. This suspense of expectation we call climax. 
The other is technical, the working out of the protagonist's 
announced purpose into a deed. This working out we call 
rise. 

It is easy to see how these two conceptions unite in any 



262 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

analysis of the "Julius Caesar," as far as the assassination ; 
for the scenes increase in interest because of the expectation 
of the event, and are in themselves the evolution of the pro- 
tagonists' purpose. But with the completion of the deed, 
the technical meaning of rise drops off, and the other con- 
tinues uninterrupted only through Antony's oration and the 
little scene that follows. With the beginning of Act IV a 
new interest must be created, not in new people necessarily 
(though there are new people) but in new expectation and a 
new course of events. In "Hamlet" the technical meaning 
of the term "rise" continues to the end of the whole action, 
reinforced by a temporarily increased expectation created 
just before and disappointed just after the middle of the 
play. It is patent, however, that the popular feeling of rise 
does not continue steadily to the consummation of Hamlet's 
purpose : there comes in the new interest of Hamlet's safety ; 
but this new interest is not so strong as the desire for Hamlet 
to do something; and consequently the new element frets 
rather than intensifies expectation. The inserted episodes 
by their very excellence break up the interest. Some are 
consequents of the one purpose, Hamlet's ; some of the other, 
the king's. We must remember, however, that the largest 
purpose is Hamlet's and that that continues unfilled until 
the end of the play. There is therefore to an extent the 
effect of climax sustained to the end. Technically, the 
reaction comes before the deed is committed. Hamlet is 
killed before he kills. The reaction begins with the pseudo- 
deed, the mental-blow in the play-scene. It is this mental 
crisis, or art crisis, that we hereafter become engaged with 
as critics of the middle of a Shakespearean play. Having 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 263 

once conceived the advantage of a mental crisis at the center 
of the play, and yet continuing to believe that tragedy must 
end with the death of the hero, Shakespeare clearly had as 
his problem of structure management of the reaction-half of 
his typical play, or unity between the two halves. 

What he first did was to shorten so much the reaction- 
half as to secure the effect of total absence of halves, or of 
"twoness" ; in other words, he gained almost complete unity 
by devoting expansion to the rise ("Othello"). What he 
did next was to omit the rise and devote expansion to the 
fall, or reaction ("Lear"), thus also gaining unity in the 
overplot, but through a desire for emphasis endangering 
unity by a reinforcing underplot. Again, he omitted all 
underplot and made the rise very brief and intense ("Mac- 
beth") — as intense as the former short reaction part follow- 
ing the former long rise — and succeeded in making the nat- 
ural rise, coming in from the history, bear the effect of a 
psychological reaction and a moral fall ; but a lack of inspira- 
tion in the management of two of the later scenes occasioned 
the impression of a lack of thorough unity. The next tragedy 
he made totally an elaboration of a catastrophe ("Antony 
and Cleopatra") ; and the next, of two catastrophes in 
sequence, both caused by the disposition of the protago- 
nist ("Coriolanus"). This last structure offers concomi- 
tant rise, fall, and climax. Following are the correlated 
data of this evolution with the points of structure defined 
and cited in the various plays. 

The rise in "Othello," we say, gives almost true climax, 
sustained to within three hundred lines of the end. This 
rise bears both the popular and the technical interpreta- 



264 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

tions of rise. It is made up of the clear exposition of 
lago as inciting motive, his full reception by Othello, and 
the working of the evil purpose out from Othello's mind 
into a deed. Technically, the rise begins at the definite 
entrance of the exciting-force into Othello's mind and con- 
tinues until the deed is done. Popularly, it begins with 
lago's announcement of what he means to do since he is 
not what he is supposed to be, but is something inimical 
to the Moor. This interest begins in the Exposition. The whole 
rise is thus truly the working of idea out into deed : lago's 
idea and Othello's idea, which become one. The highest 
part of the dramatic rise is the immediate transformation 
of the idea into the deed ; but this is prefaced and made 
intelligible by the artificial rise, lago's machinations to get 
himself accepted in Othello's mind as directing force. In 
"Lear" there is no rise in the technical sense in the main 
plot, although there is one in the underplot. In the first 
scene, Lear expresses his purpose to divide his kingdom 
in three, and there he succeeds in dividing it — in two. 
It is this division that costs him his life. In "Macbeth" the 
rise to the crisis-deed performed by the protagonist is short 
and intense. The evolution of murder from a thought to an 
action is nowhere more luminously shown. We get a 
repetition of this evolution in each succeeding murder, ex- 
cept that the ascent is quicker and Macbeth himself does 
not do the deeds planned. The first murder is, therefore, 
the protagonist's "actual" crisis. And the rise to it, the 
technical rise. In "Antony and Cleopatra" there is no 
rise in the sense of evolution of thought into a deed. What 
Antony does, he does by opportunity or the plans and pur- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 265 

poses of others. Coriolanus, too, in a way, moves forward 
on impulses and disposition and on a course of events that 
he does not initiate; but he, as well as Brutus, Hamlet, 
and Macbeth — and herein is constituted the peculiar rise of 
his tragedy — attempts something that he very much wishes 
to carry through. The difference between him and these 
other protagonists is that he fails, whereas they succeed. 
He fails to perform the deed he set out to perform — to 
humble himself enough to be consul, and is left, therefore, 
with a crisis in his disposition and a crisis which is half 
a catastrophe in events at the middle of the action. This 
state obtains after the crisis-emphasis. Whereupon there 
is a second peculiar rise, like the first, peculiar in the fact 
that while Coriolanus moves upward toward a deed pre- 
willed and expected, he does not do that deed. Moreover, 
his tragedy results as much from his failure to do as from 
his willful willing. 

The exciting-force in a Shakespearean tragedy is the idea 
in the mind of the protagonist which starts him on his fate- 
ful action. Sometimes the exciting-force is personified and 
works at first as an exciting agent, but it never fails of 
also being finally a thought in the mind of the protagonist. 
It is not much different from the old Senecan revenge 
motive or the lust of the Marlowean protagonists, except 
that its working out into action is more intimately con- 
nected with character. In "J^Hus Caesar" it is the thought 
of killing Caesar; in "Hamlet," revenge for a father; in 
"Othello," the idea of total supremacy, or of revenge chang- 
ing into the specific idea of destruction of Desdemona ; in 
"Lear," the desire to be king without responsibility and to 



266 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

depend most on the one of three daughters who loves her 
father best; in "Macbeth," to be sovereign through fair 
or foul means; in "Antony and Cleopatra," to be near the 
loved one though empires fall ; in "Coriolanus," in the first 
half, to please a mother and to be partly proud, and, in 
the second half, to be partly proud and to please a mother. 
The exciting-force has a slightly different effect in a falling 
action from what it has in a rising action. 

Emphasis of the fate-making deed either before or after 
it happens gives opportunity for an enlarged psychic crisis. 
Shakespeare seized this opportunity in every play after 
1600. Our definition of crisis-emphasis, then, remains what 
we have made it heretofore. Crisis-emphasis as used by 
Shakespeare is a review or anticipation of the crisis-deed. 
Rescanning or anticipation, instead of perpetration, makes 
this emphasis in all the plays primarily psychic. It presents 
a face-to-face meeting of the protagonist and the antago- 
nist either actually or spiritually. In "Julius Caesar," this 
crisis-emphasis is the Brutus- Antony debate; in "Hamlet," 
it is the closet scene ; in "Othello," the handkerchief scene 
with its accompanying episodes; in "Lear," it is the storm 
on the heath; in "Macbeth," it is the banquet; in "Antony 
and Cleopatra," Antony's soliloquy over his shame (and the 
two following dialogues — indeed, really all Act III, where 
Antony is shown again in Egypt, as if he had not left it 
(Scene 6 is merely a necessary connecting passage forming 
the introduction to the crisis-emphasis) ; in "Coriolanus," the 
crisis-emphasis is the elaborated banishment situation, be- 
ginning with the discussion in Coriolanus's house where he 
promises to return to plead with the people, and continu- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 267 

ing through the decree, the departure at the gate, and the 
preparation for revenge. In some adequate way the crisis- 
emphasis compels a mental survey not only of the crisis 
but of the action up to that point, and intensifies the mean- 
ing by anticipation of the catastrophe through suggestion. 
Antony, in "J^^^^s Caesar," reviews the work of the con- 
spirators and the events in the life of Caesar for which 
they slew him. Hamlet brings to the remembrance of his 
mother her former husband and speaks out about her pres- 
ent life. Othello tells Desdemona of the potency of the lost 
handkerchief and its relation to their recent marriage. Lear 
reiterates his bounty to his undutiful children. His mental 
harrowing is terrific. He is even twice face-to-face with 
his tormentors — at the beginning actually and during the 
storm imaginatively. Antony meets both the causers of 
his tragedy ; Cleopatra face-to-face, who conquers him, as 
she has from the beginning of the play conquered him; 
and Caesar, by proxy, whose messenger Antony whips, but 
who is, nevertheless, all the time materially overcoming both 
Antony and Cleopatra. Coriolanus remeets the angry 
people and their tribunes and is baited by them to his dis- 
aster. For those plays like "Antony and Cleopatra," "Ham- 
let," and "Lear," where the crisis-deed is omitted altogether 
or comes at the end or the beginning of the action, the 
crisis-emphasis in the middle necessarily takes the place of 
the crisis-deed, substituting a psychic crisis and in turn em- 
phasizing that as well as looking back to the beginning and 
on to the end. This group of psychic-crisis and crisis- 
emphasis scenes is usually very beautiful and carefully 
wrought. 



268 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

The skillful management of the exciting-force and of the 
crisis elements makes the "Othello" drama supreme, con- 
sidered from the point of view of climax in a rising action. The 
definite entrance of the exciting- force becomes the psychic 
crisis, the emphasis of this psychic crisis becomes the ante- 
cedent emphasis of the crisis-deed, the review and conse- 
quent emphasis of the crisis-deed turns out to be the catas- 
trophe, and the play is done and climax secured. It is the 
securing of climax in the falling action that we must pres- 
ently discuss. 

By falling action is meant, naturally, the opposite of ris- 
ing action. There is in connection with this term "fall," 
as well as with that of "rise," a technical and a popular 
meaning which is sometimes distinct and sometimes fused. 
Popularly, fall means the reverse of success, a drop from 
power to no power. Philosophically, fall means misadjust- 
ment. Technically, it means both reverse of success and 
misadjustment, or the resolution of deed into thought — the 
realization of failure. By "rise," we said, is meant a grad- 
ual and steady approach of the protagonist to a special deed, 
pre-willed by him, expected by the audience and consist- 
ently executed, "consistently" signifying "in accordance with 
the protagonist's character." In other words, rise is the 
evolution of idea and character into a deed — Brutus's, Ham- 
let's, Othello's, Macbeth's ; whereas fall or falling action, 
is the gradual resolution or dissolution of deed or deeds 
into thought — characteristic deeds into characteristic real- 
ization of consequential failure — Brutus's, Hamlet's, 
Othello's, Lear's, Macbeth's, Antony's, Coriolanus's, Timon's. 

It is just as easy to see how these popular and technical 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 269 

meanings of fall are present in the second half of the 
"Julius Caesar" action as to see how the popular and tech- 
nical meanings of rise are clearly applicable to the first 
half. So, in the "Hamlet" action: after the characteristic 
intellectual crisis-test, and while Hamlet continues hesitat- 
ing over the execution of the expected deed, there is the 
drop from power and there is the realization of failure con- 
sequent on disposition. There is, accordingly, in the "Julius 
Caesar" tragedy and to a large efiFect in the "Hamlet," a 
change of dominance near the middle of the play ; that is. 
there appears a new causer of events, the technical antago- 
nist, who for sometime claims the center of the stage and 
finally brings to death the protagonist. Both Antony and 
Claudius assume immediate control of events and Brutus 
and Hamlet are, for a time, retired. There is in the 
"Othello" drama no such change of dominance after the 
crisis-deed. Emilia, to be sure, brings forward the state- 
ments that open the eyes of the Moor, but the Moor is 
his own executioner, and the catastrophe is very close to 
the crisis-deed. The realization is quick, and the falling 
action consequently very short. But the Lear, Macbeth, 
Antony, and Coriolanus realizations are no such brief af- 
fairs. The "Macbeth" drama, as we have seen, is tech- 
nically the reverse of the "Othello." The "Othello" is a 
long rise and a short fall ; the "Macbeth" is a short rise 
and a long fall. Popularly considered, the rise in the 
"Macbeth" drama is as is the rise in the "Richard HI," 
incidental, concomitant with incident and belonging thereto 
and not to the play as a whole. This conception is correct 
of the "Richard HI" action. What binds that play to- 



270 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

gether are merely Richard's announcement at the beginning 
that he means to be, henceforth, a villain, and his continued 
announcements of his particular purposes. Expectation con- 
sequently rises and falls episodically with successive ap- 
proaches and fulfillments. Somewhat the same statement 
may be made of the "Richard III." This conception is 
not correct of the "Macbeth" drama, however, if more is 
meant than something in connection with stage activities 
and the rise in truculence of the scenes. Philosophically, 
Macbeth's career is from the beginning misadjustment men- 
tally; and after the crisis-deed, it is misadjustment mor- 
ally as well as mentally — it is fall. Lear's fall is one long 
agonized realization, as Antony's is likewise. Coriolanus's 
and Timon's tragedies are spiritual failures; the mere 
physical death of either of these two protagonists is unim- 
portant, except as the physical death of Coriolanus is the 
prime expectation throughout the play. 

The suggestion of the catastrophe which stands near the 
middle of the action, within the crisis-emphasis group of 
scenes, is the tragic incident, which transforms itself some- 
times, into the tragic turn. By tragic-incident is meant a 
particular happening that gathers up in itself significance 
from all that has preceded and portends as its consequent 
the evil that really follows. The word "consequent" is 
used here instead of "consequence" to express the fact that 
the happening is itself a sequential incident of the real cause 
and is not a full cause of what follows, but rather the occa- 
sion. It is usually of minor importance as an event, since 
it is not long prepared for and appears somewhat as a sur- 
prise. It always helps to emphasize the tragic idea. It re- 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 271 

inforces and intensifies the feeling of crisis though it is 
itself not the large crisis-deed. The tragic incident becomes 
a tragic turn, or links with itself a tragic turn, when the 
direction of what is to ensue is clearly different from that 
of what has gone before. In "Julias Caesar," after Bru- 
tus has ordered the citizens to stay to hear Antony, they 
join Antony and turn to fire the house of Brutus. When 
Hamlet has withheld his hand from the king by deliberative 
act, on impulse a few minutes later he kills Polonius. This 
unplanned deed, which reveals much, is a tragic turn in 
Hamlet's affairs. The forcing of equivocating self-defense 
on Desdemona, who has lost her handkerchief, is a tragic 
incident but not a turn, since the action after this scene is 
still up along the purpose of the protagonist. Lear's fling- 
ing himself off into the storm — the most foolish and most 
desperate thing he could do — is a tragic plunge but not a 
turn; it is only further progress down the way he was 
already going. In "Macbeth" the tragic incident is Mac- 
beth's compromising display of fear at the appearance of the 
ghost. Generally the tragic incident in a falling action is 
not a turn, since the direction of the events continues down. 
The tragic incident in a falling action usually precedes the 
heavier emphasis ; in other words, the place of the incident 
is about the same in all the plays, that is, within the crisis- 
emphasis on the side nearer the crisis-deed. In "Antony and 
Qeopatra," the tragic incident is Antony's decision to fight 
by sea instead of by land. This decision, like Lear's im- 
petuous act, is not a turn, but a further plunge. The crisis- 
emphasis begins in the fact that the decision is made in 
response to Cleopatra's taunt, and goes on to the failure of 



272 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

the sea fight and to Antony's soHloquy. The failure of the 
sea fight is pre-known. Enobarbus makes absolutely clear be- 
forehand the impossibility of success. The battle of Actium 
is, therefore, not a turn towards Antony's catastrophe, but 
only an incident of that catastrophe, which is already in 
progress. In "Coriolanus," however, where the action par- 
takes all along of a rise and a fall, the tragic incident, the 
standing a second time for consul, becomes a tragic turn, 
but of a peculiar sort. For the events that have preceded, 
it becomes a turn down, a catastrophe — the end; for new 
events it becomes the starting point up; that is, despite 
the turn down, altogether the banishment of Coriolanus 
serves as an elaborate arrest of the expected catastrophe, 
which is the death of Coriolanus. It is the management 
of tragic turn in "Coriolanus" that gives to this essentially 
falling action the efifect of rise and climax; in other words, 
the incident of the banishment coming at the end of the 
crisis-emphasis acts at once as a tragic turn and an arrest. 
The arrest of the catastrophe, that device which holds up 
expectation of the protagonist's death, easily becomes elab- 
orated into a scene supplementing the psychic crisis in those 
plays where the crisis-deed begins the action or is ante- 
cedent to the beginning. Lear's momentary restoration by 
Cordelia is an arrest of the catastrophe, and is presented 
as a short scene. In "Antony and Cleopatra" there is for 
each protagonist an arrest ; for Antony, the loyalty of Eros, 
who kills himself instead of his master whom he had prom- 
ised thus to serve; and in continuation, Antony's missing 
of his own heart immediately afterwards; for Cleopatra 
there are the visits of Proculeius and Caesar. Though 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 273 

changed, these incidents are taken over from the source. 
There is an excellent occurrence in "Richard III" in the 
fourth act, somewhat far removed, however, from the final 
catastrophe; and there is in "Romeo and Juliet" the coming 
of Paris to the tomb. This incident, though added by Shake- 
speare, may have resulted, we must acknowledge, from his 
desire to bring together in mortal combat at the end of the 
play a protagonist and a representative antagonist, and not 
from a desire to arrest the catastrophe. What Freytag calls 
the force of the final suspense in "Julius Caesar" — the an- 
nouncement of Brutus that he finds it cowardly and vile 
for one to kill oneself — seems to me to be a rather prepara- 
tion for the mode of Brutus's death than an arrest of a 
falling tragedy, since Brutus adds immediately that he bears 
too great a mind to go bound to Rome. An arrest of the 
catastrophe for Brutus does occur, however, in the fact that 
he wins the first encounter in the presented battle. His ar- 
rest results from the narrative source. In "Hamlet" there 
is the setting-by of the poisoned cup, an instance of this 
element of structure which, we have evidence, Shakespeare 
deliberately embellished as a late fine point of the action. 
After 1604 Shakespeare not only did not fail to adopt from 
the source opportunity for the arrest of the catastrophe, but 
he generally put in also further along in the last act of the 
play a short incidental final arrest like the one in "Hamlet." 
In "Lear" there is re-created expectation of a happy end- 
ing by the order Edmund gives to save Lear and Cordelia. 
In "Othello," to the effect that the audience may experi- 
ence a brief respite before the death of Desdemona, Desde- 
mona is allowed to speak after she is thought dead ; and 



274 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

that there may be belief for a second that Othello will not 
kill himself there is arranged the incident of taking away 
his weapon. In "Macbeth" the force of suspense reappears 
a number of times in reference to the prophecy of the 
witches. The last occurrence is just before Macduff makes 
the fatal announcement of his birth. In "Coriolanus" the 
final arrest of the catastrophe is very slight, since the large 
arrest of the catastrophe, which occurs in the story, is made 
the prime functional point of the structure; namely, the 
center of the play, or the crisis-emphasis including the tragic 
incident, which there acts as a suspensive turn effecting a 
climax. 

By climax we do not mean the technical rise, or evolu- 
tion of thought of the protagonist into a deed; since in 
a number of plays, in "Lear" and "Antony and Cleopatra" 
conspicuously, the action is not that of the evolution of 
thought into a deed, but rather of the resolution of a deed 
into thought ; and since in "Coriolanus" the rise is the evo- 
lution of the protagonist's purpose into situations only, 
where consummation in deed is impossible, and the tragic 
fall is continuous and concomitant with the rise, and the 
whole action, therefore, becomes the climactic resolution of 
character into the realization of failure and the consumma- 
tion of death. Climax means in our summary, then, what 
it has meant all along in our discussion. As a process, it 
is the continuing of expectation ; and as a product, the sat- 
isfaction of continued expectation. 

If the dramatic execution of the "Timon" action were as 
good as the philosophic conception of it, the "Timon" 
tragedy might stand to-day as the greatest of all tragedies. 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 275 

What it lacks is not dominant idea, but character present- 
ment and dramatic climax. Timon, as brought before us, 
is too typical of human nature to be human enough as an 
individual. But Timon's life expresses well what, from a 
philosophical consideration, is true tragedy — a falling ac- 
tion. 

The repetition of all our analyses has been made in brief, 
not only for summary of the points, but to insure clearer 
understanding of the effect that Shakespeare's philosophy 
had upon the structure of his plays. Shakespeare's presented 
crises in his earlier tragedies are deeds, and represent a will- 
ing on the part of the protagonist; but the philosophy in 
the "Antony and Qeopatra" and the "Coriolanus," and even 
the "Timon," is beyond that conception. Fundamentally, 
after all, it is not what we do that is tragic, but what we are 
and what we feel — what we do not do, sometimes. A con- 
flict of nature with herself is what is appalling. When once 
apprehended in all its significance, it is the grinding of the 
wheels of the gods that is terrific. 

Sophocles attempted to present this conception. Shake- 
speare attempted to present it. Ibsen has attempted to 
present it. It is the great conception of tragedy. Shake- 
speare has the advantage of both Ibsen and Sophocles, how- 
ever, in that he chose for his material, for the most part, 
facts, as well as true conception. No philosophical story 
made-up is ever quite so convincing as fact interpreted phil- 
osophically. I hold no brief for the historical drama as 
usually conceived ; but it seems fairly evident that what 
modern serious plays lack is not the facts of science, but 
the facts of story in the Elizabethan sense of the word of 



276 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

"occurred affairs of moment." Sophocles also had to an 
extent the advantage of the moderns in that Greek audiences 
believed in the material presented and felt the story. Ibsen's 
tragedies are great, as compositions, surpassing in some min- 
utiae of technic both Sophocles and Shakespeare; but Ib- 
sen's dramas lack something. It is not truth, for they are 
truthful. What is it, then? Is it not the immortality of 
acknowledged ocurrence? We notice that all Shakespeare's 
tragedies, especially those that are entirely his, are founded 
on the lives of persons v^ho are recorded as actually having 
lived. Richard III, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet even, 
Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello also, and Lear, Macbeth, 
Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. It is Shakespeare's 
presentation of these real people as they essentially were 
that fascinates us. 

The very most modern revolt against conservatism in 
problem plays is a stand for naturalness in drama. It seems 
at first thought that the revolt is against "story." Not so. 
It is against the artificiality of events "made-up" to display 
a theory. The dramatist should rather attempt to depict 
life as it is, regardless of any rounded and definite theory, 
say the advocates of the new. Modern plays, those of the 
latest school, the naturalists, do not end: they simply stop 
off. They purport to be, however, pieces of the real story, 
the story of life as it is. Ibsen's tragedies are largely 
polemic. Though Ibsen disclaimed the intention, they leave 
the impression of having been written to depict life as 
it should or should not be. Shakespeare's tragedies on the 
other hand are manifestly presentations of life that actually 
was. Perhaps these statements seem more epigrammatic 



IN ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY 277 

than correct, and we might better say that whereas Ibsen's 
dramas are of life problems, and the modern naturalists', of 
life situations, Shakespeare's are of life-deeds, those that 
were. This at least is true: back of the superb character- 
drawing in Shakespeare's tragedies and back of the effective 
dramatic technic there lies also an explanation of their 
eternal charm, eternal story. 

What, then, is a Shakespearean tragedy? Is it a story? 
Yes ; in the sense of "a body of facts of special significance." 
All Elizabethan dramas were stories. But a Shakespearean 
tragedy is not primarily narrative. Its action is not narra- 
tive, and herein is Shakespeare's distinction from all prede- 
cessors. The action of a Shakespearean tragedy is the pres- 
entation through stage devices of the issuing of events out 
of character and the issuing of catastrophe for that character 
out of those events. This analysis will answer alike for those 
plays where the catastrophe begins late and comes quickly, 
where it is dependent on one central crisis-deed, or where 
it accompanies each and every deed as an immediate re- 
ponse thereto after an earlier characteristic deed, or display 
of disposition. Character-action is Shakespeare's contribu- 
tion to the world's dramatic literature. Character-action is 
Elizabethan tragic technic at its supreme evolution. In a 
large sense it might be said, for contrast, that Greek drama 
presents the struggle of man with events super-beings create ; 
Senecan, the struggle of man with events fellow beings 
create ; but Elizabethan, the struggle of man with events his 
own being creates. Shakespeare has expressed in so many 
words, as well as in the fact of his own dramatic develop- 
ment, what the conception of tragic action had come to be. 



278 THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNIC 

At the close of his greatest elaboration of a catastrophe he 

says, 

"High events as these 
Strike those that make them." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Texts 

York Mystery Plays, Lucy Toulmin Smith, Clarendon Press, 

Oxford,' 1885. 
The Towneley Mysteries, Publications of the Surtees So- 
ciety, London, 1847. 
The Coventry and Chester Plays, Supplement to Dodsley's 

Old Plays, London, 1847. 
The Digby Mysteries, The New Shakspere Society, London, 

1882. 
The Macro Plays, The Early English Text Society, London, 

1904. 
English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes, by Alfred 

W. Pollard, 3d ed., 1898. 
The Dramatic Writings of Richard Wever and Thomas 

Ingelend, Early English Dramatists, London, 1905. 
Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperian Drama, Manly, Vol. i. 

The Athenaeum Press, Boston, 1897. 
Ten Latin Tragedies of Seneca, Latin Text and Translation 

Into Prose by Watson Bradshaw, Swan, Sonnenschein 

& Co., London, 1902. 
Tenne Tragedies of Seneca, Black-Letter Edition, Publica- 
tions of the Spenser Society, Issue 44, 1887. 
Gorboduc — Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean Drama, Vol. 

Two, Manly, Athenaeum Press, 1900. 
Cambyses — Ditto. Vol. Two. 
Appius and Virginia — Dodsley's Old English Plays, Vol. 

Four, Hazlitt, W. C. Reeves and Turner, 1875. 
Damon and Pythias — Ditto. 
Jocasta — Four Old Plays, F. J. Childs, George Nichols, 

Cambridge, 1848. 
Tancred and Gismunda — Dodsley's Old English Plays, Vol. 

Seven. 

279 



280 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Promos and Cassandra — Shakespeare's Library, Vol. Six. 
Misfortunes of Arthur — Dodsley's Old English Plays, Vol. 

Four. 
Locrine — Collection of British Authors, Vol. 1041, Tauch- 

nitz Edition, Doubtful Plays by Shakespeare. 
The Spanish Tragedy — The Temple Dramatists, Schick, 

Dent & Co., London, 1898. 
Tragedies of Marlowe — Works of Christopher Marlowe, 

Lieut.-Col. Cunningham, Chatto and Windus, London, 

1902. 
The Temple Shakespeare, J. M. Dent & Co., London, 1904. 
The Tudor Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Macmillan, New 

York, 191 1. 

Critical Works 
Chambers, E. K. — Medieval Stage, 2 vols.. Clarendon Press, 

Oxford, 1903. 
Cunliffe, J. M. — Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Drama, 

Macmillan, 1893. 
Davidson, Charles. — Studies in English Mystery Plays, 

Thesis at Yale, 1892. 
Freytag, Gustav — Die Technik des Dramas, Zehnte Auflage, 

Hirzel, Leipsig, 1905. 
Perrett, Wilfrid — The Story of King Lear from Geoffrey of 

Monmouth to Shakespeare, Mayer and Muller, 1904. 
Price, W. T. — Technique of the Drama, Brentano's, 1897. 
Schelling, F. E. — Elizabethan Drama 1 558-1642, 2 vols., 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1910. 
Thorndike, A. H. — Hamlet and Revenge Tragedy, Relation 

of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge Plays, Private 

Press. 
Thorndike, A. H. — Tragedy, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1908. 
Ward, W. A. — History of English Dramatic Literature, 3 

vols., Macmillan, 1899. 
Woodbridge, Elizabeth — The Drama : Its Laws and Its 

Technique, Allyn and Bacon, 1898. 



Index 



Ahraham and Isaac, 13-17. 

Action, 85-114. 251i, 257, 27.'5, 274, 
277 (Shakespearean defined). 

Action, character, 277 ; material, 
24:> ; spiritual. 248, 244; moral, 
200. 210, 211. 214. 217. 218, 224; 
narrative. 200. 215, 217. 219 ; psy- 
chological, 200, 208, 218; outer 
and inner. 200, 201. 

Adoration of the. Magi, 10. 

Aciicid, 65. 

AgaiKCiiinon (Aeschuylus), GO. 

Agaiiieiinton, o5, 47. 49, 102, 103. 

Alleyn, 72. 

Amleth, 183. 

Antagonist, 85-114. 120. 190, 221, 
222, 250, 256. 257. 

Antotiy and Clcuimtm, 45, 84, 133, 
165, 196, 201, 226. 228-35, 243, 
246. 251. 260, 261. 263, 264, 266, 
267. 271. 272. 274. 

Arrest of the Catastrophe, 146-153, 
192. 220. 250-52. 272, 27.1 (de- 
fined) ; final arrest. 251, 273, 274 
(defined). 

F.aker. George P., 160. 

Bale, 80. 

P.andello, 97. 

Battle of Alcazar, The, 40, 76, 132, 
134. 

P.elleforest, 115. 139. 

Boisteau, 97. 

Bondvca, 15. 

Brooke. 96, 101. 

Browning. 5. 

Burial of Christ, 25. 

Cain, 12. 

Cawhyses, 36, 39, 55-57, 80, 206, 

255. 
Cardinal, 43. 

Castle of Perseverance. 26-28. 
Catastrophe. 35-42. 186. 187, 229, 

232-34. 236. 237, 244-48, 252, 

253. 261. 263, 272. 
Catiline, 45. 
Chaucer, 35. 
Choephorae, 69. 
Chorus, 44-48, 102-4, 106. 
Cinthio, 181. 



Climax, 1.35-153. 171. 215, 217, 
2.{3 ; in falling action, 227, 
259. 261 (defined). 263, 274, 
(defined) ; in rising action, 

Coleridge, 5. 

Coming of the Three Kings, 10. 

Coriolanus, 22.5, 228-.30, 235-40, 
53, 257. 258. 260, 261, 263, 
266, 272. 274. 275. 

Crisis, 112, 135-5.;. 220. 222, 
247; mental, 167, 168, 246, 
263. 

Crisis-deed. 119-21. 125. 171, 
198, 246. 252. 259 (defined), 
261. 264, 271. 

Crisis-emphasis, 115-34, 142-45, 
56. 196. 217, 220, 22.3, 231, 
258. 265-67, 271. 272. 

Crucifixion , 8. 23. 

Cunliffe. 43, 44. 

Damon and Pythias, 36, 55. 
Darid and Bethsabe, 3S, 40. 
Devices, theatrical, 200-7, 221. 
Disobedient Child, The, 31. 
Doctor Faustus, 76, 77, 80, 86, 

178. 
Doomsday, 8. 
Duke of Milan, 41. 

Edward I, 80. 

Edward JI, 11. 38, 79, 80, 86. 

132, 1.34, 178. 
Elizabeth, 43. 
Eumenidcs, 69. 
Everyman, 30, 31. 
Exciting-force. 1G7-69, 

264-66 (defined). 
E.'cposition, 175, 264. 



232, 
253, 
275 
268. 



245- 
265, 



232, 
262* 



196, 
260, 



154- 
247. 



;, 89, 



88, 



196, 



Falling action, 185-87. 210. 

219. 22.3, 236. 244, 247. 252. 

263, 268 (defined), 271-75. 
Fleay, 118. 

Freytag. 150. 151. 231-33, 254, 
Furnival, 1.36. 

Gascoigne, 39. 
Ghosts, 2, 182. 



Ml, 
J53, 



281 



282 



INDEX 



Ghost, 114, 118, 119, 134, 135, 138, 
174, 180, 201, 206-10, 213, 214, 
217, 218, 221. 

Oismvnde of Salerno, 55, 99. 

Goethe, 77, 142. 

Gorboduc, 38, 43, 44, 56-58, 63. 

Hamlet, 3, 12, 41. 45, 46, 68. 110, 
117, 118, 133, 135-50, 152-54, 160, 
161, 166, 168, 171-76, 180, 182, 
193-95, 207-10, 225, 236, 245, 
257, 258, 260-62, 265-69, 271, 273. 

Henry V, 44. 

Henry VI, 85. 

Henslowe, 68. 

Hercules Fvrens, 48, 64-66. 

Hercules (Etacus, 43, 50, 103. 

Hesitation motive, 68. 136, 140. 

Hippolytus (Euripides), 54; (Sen- 
eca), 47-50, 53-55, 58, 100-6. 

Holinshed, 204. 

Ibsen, 144, 182, 275-77. 

Jeronymo, 68. 

Jeio of Malta, The, 78, 80, 86, 132, 

256. 
Jocasta, 39. 
Jonson, Ben, 44-46, 71. 
Julius Caesar, 115, 117-28, 130-37, 

161, 168, 172, 193, 194, 201, 207, 

216, 217, 226, 249, 257-60, 262, 

265-67, 269, 271, 272. 

Kant, 222. 

Key-note scene, 107, 154, 202, 257, 

258 (defined). 
King John, 81, 179. 
Kyd, 64-66, 89. 136, 176. 
Kynge, Johan, 80. 

Lamb, 79. 

Lear, 3, 41, 133, 165, 18.3-88, 192- 
99. 201. 210, 222, 225, 230-32, 
243-45, 253, 259, 260, 264-67, 270- 
73. 

Locrine, 48. 

Lytton, 5. 

Macbeth, 4, 35, 41, 45. 70, 78, 83, 
165, 200-11, 221-29, 2.36. 241, 243, 
249, 252-55, 257-59, 263-66, 268- 
71, 274. 

Mactatio Abel, 12. 

Magdalene, 1.3. 17-20. 

Mankind, 26-28. 

Maria Virgo, 25. 

Marlowe, 9, 44, 46, 71, 72, 76-78, 
88, 92, 97. 

Massacre of the Innocents, 9. 



Massinger, 41, 125. 

Medea, 47-53, 100-2, 123, 142, 14.3. 

Merchant of Venice, The, 62, 78, 

116. 
Mirror of Martyrs, 116. 
Misfortunes of Arthur, The, 39, 44, 

69, 70, 13.3. 
Morality plays, 26-.34, 255. 
Morality of Wisdom Wlio is Christ, 

A, 28. 
Mot de situation, 169, 246. 
Motive, 4.3-70, 135, 136, 154, 159, 

164, 256. 
Moving-picture show, 234. 
Mundus et Infans, 29. 
Mystery plays, 7-25, 205. 

Naturalists, 276. 277. 
l\'ice Wanton. 32. 
North, 115, 138, 232. 
Oblacio Magorum, 10. 
Octavia, 47, 49, 66, 101. 
Oedipus, 47, 50, 58, 186. 
Othello, .3.3, 40, 110, 133, 151, 154- 
77, 181-88, 19.3, 196, 201, 204, 

205, 210, 222, 223. 252, 255, 259, 
260, 263-69, 273, 274. 

Painter, 97. 

Pallace of Pleasure, 97. 

Paolo and Prancesca, 35. 

Peele, 76, 80. 

Pericles, 19, 44. 

Philosophic idea, xl, 225-53, 255, 

257, 274. 275. 
Phoenissae, 47. 
Play within the play, 140-42. 
Plutarch, 85, 240. 
Pope, 44. 
Portraiture, 257. 
Preston, 80. 

Promos and Cassandra, 55. 
Protagonist, 71-84, 187, 188, 190-92, 

196. 197. 238, 239, 244, 246, 248- 

51, 255-57, 205. 

Reaction, 262, 263. 

Realists, 277. 

He morse of Judas, The, 20-23. 

Resurrection, 8. 

Retributive idea, 114, 258. 

Return action, 126, 192-95, 199, 

219. 247, 252. 
Revenge motive, 46-50, 55, 6.3, 114- 

135, 136, 249, 250, 265. 
Richard II, 78. 83-85, 92-95, 120, 

128, 129, 179, 209. 257, 270. 
Richard III, 78, 81-87. 92, 93, 120, 

128, 134, 149, 150, 161. 166, 178, 

206, 209, 224. 257 269-70, 273. 
Richelieu, 5. 



INDEX 



283 



Rise. 115-34, 156, 215, 218, 222, 
22.'',, 236, 243, 261-65 (defined), 
272. 

Jiomeu and Juliet, 35, 44, 46, 62, 
84, 96, 98-102. 109-14, 116-19, 
131, 134, 151, 173, 180, 194. 205, 
209, 226, 257, 258, 273. 

Saxo Grammaticus, 138. 

Scenes, special, 202-20. 

Schick, 65, 66. 

Schiller, 35. 

Sejunus, 45. 

Second Accusation before Pilate, 20 

Seneca. 12, 4.3-50, 86-88, 97, 105 
124. 138. 173-76, 185, 250, 265 

Shakespeare. 1. 5, 7. 41. 42. 45. 46 
62. ('18. 7(;. 78, SO. 82-!)(), 9.">-101 
103-6, 100-11. 113, 122, 124-55 
159. 101. 104-66. 16S. 170-73 
175-86. 192-200. 202, 204-9. 211 
21:5. 216-18. 221-20, 229-:!6. 2:!!l- 
44, 249, 250. 255-61, 273, 275-77. 

Sitiiiitions, tragic, .■'.3. 

SUtHohtcr of the Innocents, 8, 9. 

Kolyman and Perseda, 40. 

Sophocles. 275. 276. 

Spanish Tragcdic, The, 36, 40, 63- 
69, 71, 75. 136, 145. 209. 

Stor.v. 277. 

Structure, 198, 254-278. 

Studley, 55. 

Subplot, 184. 

Surrey, 255. 

Tamhurlaine, 41, 72-76, 86, 132, 
134, 166, 178, 256. 



Tancred and Gismunda, 39, 54, 55, 

58-63, 99, 184, 255. 
Ten Trayedies of Seneca, 47, 64. 
Thebais, 47, 66. 
Thorndike, Ashley 11., 183. 
ThyestCK, 47. 49, 50. 58, 65. 
Tiinon of Athens, 201, 225, 228-30, 

274, 275. 
Titus Andronicus, 41. 
Tourneur, 41. 
Trasody, moral (defined), 226, 2.36, 

252; spiritual, 226. 2:'.6, 244, 

252. 
Trasic incident, 125, 154, 170, 2l:o. 

247, 270. 271 (defined). 271-73. 
Tragic situations, 7-34. 250. 
'J'ra-ic turn. 125, 120. 247 (defined), 

272. 
'rrasrical-comedy, 39. 
Traitor, The, 43. 
Troades, 47, 50. 103. 
Troilus and ('ressida. 77. 
Trouhlesonie Iici<jii of King John, 

The. 82. 
Twelfth Night, 9. 

Underplot, 192-94. 263. 264. 
Unity, 154-75, 183-0!), 2:;i. 247, 253, 
263. 

Weever, 116. 
White Devil, The, 62. 
Wilhelm Meister, 142. 
Wilmot. 99. 
Winter's Tale, A, 44. 
Word.sworth, 5. 
Wyatt, 255. 



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